Christian  Origins 


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Christian  Origins 


BY 


OTTO  PFLEIDERER,  D.D, 

Professor  in  the  University  of  Berlin 


TRANSLATED  FROM  THE  GERMAN  BY 

DANIEL  A.  HUEBSCH,  Ph.D. 


jiuthortTied  Edition 


NEW  YORK 

B.  W.  HUEBSCH 

1906 


^U\UUiL. 


Copyright,  1906,  by 
B.  W.  HUEBSCH 

Rtgistered  at  Stationers'  Hall 


"  Die  Entstehung  des  Christentums  " 

Published  April  25,  19.  5. 

Privilege  of  Copyright  in  the  United  States 

reserved  under  the  Act  approved  March  3,  1905,  by 

J.  F.  Lehmann,  MUnchcn. 


PREFACE 

(This  book  is  the  outcome  of  public  lectures,  de- 
livered at  the  University  of  Berlin  during  the  past 
winter  semester,  in  the  presence  of  the  students  of 
all  departments  and  many  non-collegiate  visitors  of 
both  sexes.  With  almost  no  other  change  than  the 
addition  of  a  few  notes  I  sent  the  manuscript  to 
press.  Forced  to  cover  the  subject  in  sixteen  lec- 
tures, a  condensation  of  the  abundant  material  de- 
manded a  selection  of  the  essential,  and  the  regard 
for  the  interest  of  the  non-theological  public  directed 
the  choice.  All  technical  matter,  particularly  criti- 
cism of  related  literature,  had  to  be  omitted ;  those 
readers  who  are  interested  therein,  will  find  it  in  my 
larger  work :  "  Das  U rchristenthum,  seine  Schrif- 
ten  und  Lehren,  in  geschichtlichem  Zusammenhang 
beschrieben,"  2  Aufl.  1902. 

The  viewpoint  from  which  the  origin  of  Chris- 
tianity is  herein  described  is  purely  historical;  the 
Introduction  gives  information  concerning  the  mean- 
ing of  this  method  and  its  relation  to  other  methods 
of  treatment.  It  lies  in  the  nature  of  things  that 
such  a  purely  historical  description  of  the  origin  of 
our  religion  will  differ  vastly  and  in  many  ways 
from  the  traditional  Church  presentation.     Hence, 


175633 


Preface 

this  book  has  not  been  written  for  such  readers  as 
feel  satisfied  by  the  traditional  church-faith.  It  may 
hurt  their  feelings  easily  and  confuse  them  in  their 
convictions;  I  would  feel  sorry  for  that  because  I 
cherish  a  respect  for  every  honest  faith.  But  I 
know  that  in  all  classes  and  circles  of  society  to-day 
there  are  many  men  and  women  who  have  entirely 
outgrown  the  traditional  church-faith  and  who  are 
possessed  of  an  urgent  desire  to  learn  what  is  to  be 
thought,  from  the  standpoint  of  modern  science, 
concerning  the  origin  of  this  faith  and  concerning 
the  eternal  and  temporal  in  it.  To  go  out  toward 
such  truth-seekers  is  a  duty  which  the  trained  repre- 
sentative of  science  dare  not  shirk;  he  may  not 
withdraw  where  there  is  the  added  fear  that  un- 
trained leaders  will  push  themselves  forward  and 
increase  the  confusion  of  souls  by  their  arbitrary 
notions. 

It  is  self-evident,  that  no  historical  research- 
worker  considers  himself  infallible;  that  would  be 
foolish  in  any  department,  but  the  folly  were  three- 
fold in  the  branch  of  early-Christian  history,  with 
its  problems  of  unusual  difficulty.  Certain  as  is  the 
declaration  in  the  majority  of  cases,  that  something 
could  not  possibly  be  historical  reality,  so  certain  it 
is  that  the  question,  what  is  to  be  considered  the 
actual  course  of  events,  can  be  answered  only  by 
relative  possibility.  This  book,  too,  does  not  pre- 
tend to  contain  any  more  than  those  results  of  the 
critical  research  in  early  Christianity  which  are  in 

4 


Preface 

my  opinion  most  probably  true.  Nevertheless,  I 
may  say  that  what  is  here  offered  to  a  large:  circle 
of  readers  for  private  reflection  and  consideration 
is  the  mature  product  of  more  than  forty  years  of 
earnest  study. 

Science  is  ever-progressing  and,  naturally,  the 
state  of  knowledge  here  presented  will  be  but  a  step 
in  the  onward  march.  In  which  direction?  With 
certainty,  nothing  can  be  foretold,  but,  judging  by 
all  past  experience  and  by  many  a  sign  of  the  pres- 
ent, it  may  well  be  supposed  that  the  progress  of 
knowledge  will  not  be  toward  the  old  tradition,  but 
rather  to  a  greater  departure  from  it.  Hence,  we 
will  do  well  to  dwell  more  and  more  in  the  thought, 
that  the  real  subject  of  our  pious  belief  is  not  what 
has  been,  but  what  is  eternal!  "  That  alone  which 
never  transpired  in  any  place,  never  becomes  time- 
worn  !'* 

That  is  no  reason  at  all  why  the  history  of  the 
past  should  be  held  valueless;  it  contains  the  signs 
and  guides  of  the  eternal,  but  not  the  final  and  the 
highest  at  which  we  ought  to  stop. 

Otto  Pfleiderer. 

Gross-Lichtkrfelde,  March^  1905, 


TABLE  OF  CONTENTS 

PAGE 

Preface     3 

Introduction 9 

I.  Preparation  and  Foundation  of  Christianity 

Preparation  of  Christianity  in  Greek  Philosophy    .     .     .     .     31 

The  Jewish-Greek  Philosophy  of  Philo 49 

Preparation  of  Christianity  in  Judaism 59 

Jesus 83 

The  Messianic  Congregation 133 

II.  The    Evolution    of    Early-Christianity  into  the 
Church 

The  Apostle  Paul 155 

The  Three  Older  Gospels 217 

The  Gnostic  Movement 249 

The  Gospel  of  John 261 

The  Establishment  of  Church  Authority 281 


u~^  JLi.  V-"" 

.   .     THE 

,  .^JIVERSITY 


INTRODUCTION 


The  real  historical  conception  of  the  origin  of 
Christianity  is  of  recent  date.  So  long  as  the  prob- 
lem was  approached  with  the  presupposition  of  the 
church  belief,  it  was  impossible.  If  the  origin  of 
Christianity  consisted  in  the  descent  of  the  second 
person  of  the  Deity  from  heaven  to  earth,  in  his 
becoming  man  in  the  body  of  a  Jewish  virgin,  in  his 
bodily  resurrection  after  dying  on  the  cross,  and 
his  ascent  to  heaven,  then  the  origin  of  Christianity 
is  a  complete  miracle,  incapable  of  any,  historical 
explanation.  For,  the  historical  understanding  of 
a  phenomenon  means  comprehending  it  in  its  causal 
connections  with  the  circumstances  of  a  particular 
time  and  a  particular  place  of  human  life.  The 
entrance  of  a  superhuman  being  into  the  mundane 
world  would  constitute  a  new  beginning  absolutely, 
standing  in  no  causal  relation  whatever  with  any- 
thing preceding;  therefore  it  could  not  be  grasped 
by  analogy  with  any  other  human  experience,  in 
short,  the  phenomenon  withdraws  from  all  historical 
explanation. 

Such  a  Christian  origin  could  only  be  the  object 
of  faith,  not  of  historical  knowledge.  But  this 
faith,  according  to  the  Church  doctrine,  is  based  on 

9 


Christian  Origins 

God's  revelation  in  the  Bible,  which  had  been  given 
in  all  its  parts  by  God,  a  direct  divine  testimony  for 
humanity,  hence,  also  a  miracle.  The  miraculous 
origin  of  Christianity  finds  its  support  in  the  miracu- 
lous character  of  the  Bible.  That  is  logical  and  is 
the  only  thing  possible  from  that  viewpoint.  Chris- 
tians could  rest  content  therewith,  so  long  as  reli- 
gious consciousness  lived  without  guile  in  the  world 
of  the  miraculous,  the  supernatural  and  the  mysteri- 
ous, and  so  long  as  the  Bible  was  regarded  by  the 
eye  of  faith  as  a  source  of  edification,  without  test- 
ing its  separate  books  with  critical  understanding. 
As  soon  as  this  was  done,  it  became  apparent  that 
the  reports  of  the  New  Testament  concerning  the 
person  of  Christ  are  by  no  means  so  harmonious 
as  church-faith  presupposed,  that  the  Christ  of  the 
first  three  Gospels  appears  as  a  real  man  and  not  yet 
as  a  God  become  man,  that  only  two  of  the  gospels 
tell  of  his  supernatural  birth  and  that  the  narratives 
of  his  resurrection  and  ascension  are  full  of  con- 
tradictions. As  soon  as  this  condition  of  affairs  was 
seriously  considered,  the  ingenuous  Church-belief  in 
the  miracle  of  the  supernatural  origin  of  Chris- 
tianity was  shaken  and  soon  made  way  for  the  more 
reasonable  and  natural  conception. 

The  beginning  of  this  change  is  to  be  found  in 
that  tendency  which  appeared  in  England  in  the 
seventeenth  century  under  the  name  of  Freethinking 
or  Deism,  spread  to  the  Netherlands  and  France, 
and  in  Germany  in  the  eighteenth  century  acquired 

IP 


Introduction 

the  name  "Enlightenment"  or  "Rationalism." 
Various  causes  united  in  developing  this  movement. 
After  the  religious  wars,  the  parties  divided  by 
dogmas  felt  the  need  for  mutual  toleration,  hence 
they  sought  a  universally  valid  norm  of  truth  out- 
side the  dogmas,  and  that  could  be  found  only  in  the 
reason  and  experience  common  to  all  men.  In  addi- 
tion, there  came  the  exercise  of  scientific  thinking  in 
the  newly-flourishing  natural  sciences  and  mathe- 
matics ;  accustomed  by  them  to  the  correct  sequences 
of  logical  thinking  as  well  as  the  closeness  of  the 
causal  relation  in  all  natural  events,  it  was  impos- 
sible to  rest  content  with  the  simple  faith  in  miracles 
in  the  religious  field,  and  there  began  a  search  for 
the  natural  and  reasonable  explanation  of  things. 

John  Toland's  famous  book  ("  Christianity  not 
mysterious,  a  Proof  that  in  the  Gospels  nothing  is 
opposed  to  or  beyond  the  reason  ")  is  written  from 
this  standpoint.  Matthew  Tindal  sought  to  prove 
that  Christianity  is  as  old  as  creation,  and  that  the 
gospel  of  Jesus  is  no  more  than  a  new  proclama- 
tion of  that  original,  natural  religion  which  had  been 
defiled  by  the  additions  of  heathens  and  Jewish 
superstition  and  the  deception  of  priests.  The 
enlightened  followers  of  the  Leibniz- Wolff  philos- 
ophy in  Germany  took  the  same  ground ;  such  a  one 
was  Reimarus,  a  scholar  of  Hamburg,  and  it  is 
from  his  "  Schutzschrift  "  (Treatise  of  defense  for 
the  sensible  worshippers  of  God)  that  Lessing  took 
the  "  Wolfenbiitteler  Fragmente."     In  this  publica- 


Christian  Origins 

tion,  the  evangelical  reports  of  the  resurrection  of 
Jesus  are  subjected  to  searching  criticism;  after  the 
miracle  has  been  critically  dissected,  a  supposedly 
natural  explanation  of  the  narrative  is  looked  for 
in  a  deception  of  the  disciples,  which  would  have  it 
appear  that  they  stole  the  body  of  Jesus. 

This  is  a  characteristic  example  of  the  want  of 
real  historical  sense  and  psychological  understanding 
in  handling  religious  problems,  which,  without 
exception,  was  peculiar  to  that  Rationalism.  Com- 
mendable as  its  honest  courage  of  truth  and  keen 
as  its  criticism  of  dogmatic  and  legendary  tradition 
were,  nevertheless  it  seemed  unable  to  move  beyond 
mere  negation  to  any  kind  of  satisfying  position. 
Its  rigid  intellectuality  lacked  all  adaptability  to  the 
manner  of  thinking  and  feeling  of  another,  of  enter- 
ing into  the  spirit  of  past  periods  and  of  seeking 
out  with  sympathetic  understanding  the  unconscious 
activity  and  poetry  of  the  religious  imagination.  It 
had  not  the  faintest  foreknowledge  of  the  concep- 
tion of  "  evolution  "  in  the  history  of  the  human 
spirit;  it  presupposed  that  reason  employed  one 
method  of  thinking,  alike  everywhere  and  complete 
from  the  beginning,  and  that  method  it  held  to  be 
the  true  one.  This  very  narrow,  subjective  standard 
of  measure,  it  applied  to  every  phenomenon  of  his- 
tory. Wherever  the  stories  or  teachings  of  the 
Gospels  and  the  Apostles  did  not  suit,  either  a  forced 
exegesis  would  give  the  desired  interpretation  or 
the  passage  was  declared  to  be  an  unreal  figure  of 

12 


Introduction 

speech;  but  it  was  just  this  which  robbed  the  biblical 
figures  of  their  characteristics  and  reduced  every- 
thing to  the  monotonous  plane  of  a  rational  ethics, 
which  could  never  lead  one  to  understand  how  the 
movement  of  Christianity  which  shook  the  world 
could  have  gone  forth  from  it. 

With  regard  to  the  evangelical  miracle  stories  this 
rationalism  occupied  a  peculiarly  difficult  position; 
though  it  did  not  regard  the  Bible  as  the  inspired 
word  of  God,  yet  it  did  consider  that  the  book  had 
been  written  by  authors,  who  wished  to  speak  truth 
for  the  sake  of  piety,  and  as  eye-witnesses  were  in 
position  to  do  so;  thus,  it  felt  in  duty  bound  to 
accept  the  evangelical  miracle  stories  as  historical, 
arid  yet,  according  to  the  general  principles  on  which 
its  rational  world-view  rested,  it  could  not  really 
believe  in  miracles.  What  was  to  be  done  ?  It  was 
granted  that  the  story  told  did  describe  an  actual 
event,  but  it  was  stripped  of  its  miraculous  character 
by  reducing  it  to  a  natural,  generally  trivial,  occur- 
rence which  had  been  regarded  as  a  miracle  because 
of  a  misunderstanding  either  on  the  part  of  the 
narrator  or  the  reader. 

The  rationalist  Paulus,  for  example,  explains  the 
miracle  of  Jesus  walking  on  the  waters,  by  saying 
that  the  Greek  word  had  been  misunderstood,  so  that 
the  passage  means  not  "  on  "  but  "  by  "  the  waters ; 
the  miracle  at  the  baptism  of  Jesus  rests  on  a  mis- 
taken interpretation  of  the  fact  that  a  dove  chanced 
to  alight  near  Jesus  at  that  moment ;  the  miracle  of 

13 


Christian  Origins 

the  transformation  of  the  water  at  Cana  is  reduced 
to  the  mere  trick  of  a  prestidigitator,  which  Jesus 
performed  as  a  bit  of  amusement  at  the  wedding; 
less  comically  innocent  but  repugnant  and  low  is  the 
rational  explanation  of  the  birth  story,  wherein  the 
thought-laden  poetry  of  legend  is  dragged  in  the 
mire  of  vulgar  prose. 

From  two  sides  came  the  release  from  the  narrow 
limitations  of  this  rationalistic  treatment  of  history ; 
the  one  was  a  deeper  psychological  understanding  of 
religion  and  its  poetic  picture  language,  and  the 
other  was  the  more  thorough  investigation  of  the 
historical  sources.  In  the  former  case,  it  was 
Herder  who  gave  the  impetus  to  the  movement, 
generally  designated  "  Romanticism,"  which  had 
such  powerful  effect  both  for  good  and  evil  on  the 
theological  treatment  of  history  in  the  nineteenth 
century.  Herder  recognized,  with  Hamann,  that 
poetry  is  the  mother-tongue  of  the  human  race,  the 
natural  outlet  of  the  emotions  in  general,  and  of 
religious  feeling  in  particular.  This  was  the  key 
to  a  new  and  intimate  appreciation  of  the  Bible 
language,  leading  beyond  the  stiff  pedantry  and  petty 
literalism  of  the  orthodox  as  well  as  of  the  Rational- 
ists. 

With  the  same  fine  sense  of  religious  content  and 
poetic  form  which  had  enabled  him  to  penetrate  into 
the  spirit  of  Hebrew  poetry,  Herder  was  able  to 
attune  his  spirit  to  the  New  Testament  stories  and 
to  r?^!iz^  their  edificatory  value ;  but  Herder's  grit" 

H 


Introduction 

ical  understanding  did  not  keep  pace  with  tHe  sympa- 
thetic suppleness  of  his  feeUngs.  Because  the 
miraculous  gospel  stories  were  congenial  to  his  spirit 
and  his  aesthetic  taste,  therefore  he  believed  that 
they  actually  took  place,  however  impossible  might 
be  the  reconciliation  with  his  world-view  as  a  phi- 
losopher. He  believed  in  them  because  his  heart  was 
their  advocate  and  because  the  reciprocal  recognition 
of  idea  and  reality  had  become  such  a  need  and 
habit  of  his  intuitive  way  of  thinking  that  the 
reasonable  demand  of  a  distinction  between  ideal 
content  and  historical  fact  in  the  biblical  traditions 
never  rose  clearly  into  his  consciousness. 

The  direct  identification  of  idea  and  reality,  which 
was  still  naive  Romanticism  with  Herder,  Schleier- 
macher  developed  into  a  Christological  theory  and 
fixed  as  the  central  point  of  his  theological  system. 
Therewith,  the  miracle  once  more  was  placed  at  the 
head  of  Christian  history ;  no  longer  as  the  miracu- 
lous descent  of  a  God  to  earth  and  no  longer  on 
the  basis  of  the  inspired  word  of  the  Bible,  but  now 
it  was  held  to  be  the  presupposition  of  all  Christian 
feeling,  that  in  the  man  Jesus  there  actually  had 
been  realized  the  absolute  ideal  of  religious  perfec- 
tion, bliss,  freedom  from  error  and  sin,  and  therefore 
his  person  demands  recognition  as  the  unique  and 
complete  existence  of  God  in  humanity.  In  the 
Ritschlian  theology  this  grew  into  the  bold  assertion, 
that  the  man  Jesus  must  stand  as  God  for  us,  because 
he  is  the  only  revelation  of  God  in  the  world's 


H 


Christian  Origins 

Self-evidently  this  romantic  deification  of  the  man 
Jesus,  this  precedence  of  a  "  super-man "  and 
miraculous  being  at  the  beginning  of  the  history  of 
Christianity,  hindered  the  scientific  understanding 
thereof  to  a  high  degree;  and  this  was  clearly  seen 
in  the  course  of  that  Li fe-of- Jesus-Theology  which 
was  dominated  by  the  dogmatics  of  Schleiermacher 
and  Ritschl.  Naturally  enough,  after  the  miracle 
of  a  superhuman  being  was  placed  at  the  forefront, 
miracles  of  all  kinds  were  stationed  at  all  decisive 
points  along  its  further  history;  thus,  the  continuity 
of  causal  connection  in  all  events,  the  principle  of 
all  real  historical  research,  was  abandoned.  Where 
this  was  not  so  palpable,  there  was  still  the  attempt 
to  read  the  ideal  of  the  individual  into  the  Gospels 
and  so  paint  over  characteristic  features  that  they 
seemed  to  correspond  accurately  with  the  Christ 
ideal  of  the  present; — this  attempt,  more  or  less 
visible  everywhere,  was  a  great  hindrance  to  unprej- 
udiced research  into  the  origin  of  Christianity. 

German  theology  was  first  rudely  awakened  from 
her  romantic  illusions  by  the  celebrated  "  Life  of 
Jesus,"  by  David  Frederick  Strauss.  Not  only  was 
the  rationalistic  critique  of  the  miraculous  Bible 
stories  carried  out  with  logical  strictness  and  keen- 
ness in  every  detail,  but  for  the  first  time  a  satis- 
factory explanation  of  these  stories  was  offered  by 
the  employment  of  the  conception  of  the  "  myth  " 
or  pious  folk  legend  which  had  long  been  applied  to 
profane  history.     According  to  this  new  conception, 

l6 


Introduction 

the  miraculous  stories  of  the  Gospels  are  not  super- 
natural stories  (as  the  Supernaturalists  held)  nor 
natural  stories  (as  the  Rationalists  held),  but  they 
are  myths,  that  is,  poems  or  legends ;  not  in  the  de- 
liberate work  of  an  individual  is  their  origin  found, 
but  in  the  activity  of  the  folk-consciousness,  the 
involuntary  thinking  and  poetizing  of  the  many  at 
once.  According  to  Strauss,  the  Old  Testament 
served  as  the  prototype,  and  for  the  most  part  fur- 
nished the  material  for  the  miraculous  legends  of  the 
Gospels. 

The  effect  of  this  book  was  tremendous ;  in  many 
circles,  the  impression  obtained  that  it  had  resolved 
the  whole  life  of  Jesus  into  a  myth,  a  simple  poem 
lacking  all  historical  foundation.  Strauss  himself 
did  not  seek  to  make  this  impression,  nevertheless, 
it  was  his  fault  because  he  stopped  at  the  destructive 
criticism  of  the  miracle  stories,  without  making  any 
attempt  to  bare  the  positive  historical  kernel  hidden 
in  the  mythical  shell.  He  had  shown  that  what 
had  been  regarded  before  as  the  early  history  of 
Christianity,  had  not  actually  occurred  so;  but  he 
did  no  more,  for  as  to  what  really  did  take  place, 
the  darkness  was  profound  as  ever.  Strauss  was 
unable  to  say  anything  positive  on  the  subject,  for 
he  lacked  methodical  criticism  of  the  source-books. 

Under  the  circumstances,  it  is  not  remarkable 
that  shortly  thereafter  Bruno  Bauer,  a  Berlin  critic, 
who  always  tended  to  extremes,  exaggerated  this 
mythical  interpretation  of  the  Gospels  to  a  denial 

17 


A- 


Christian  Origins 

of  all  historical  content.  According  to  Bauer,  the 
life  of  Jesus  does  not  belong  to  history,  but  is  the 
invention  of  the  Evangelist  Mark  who,  in  the  reign 
of  Hadrian,  used  the  philosophic  ideas  of  his  time 
to  sketch  the  ideal  picture  of  a  popular  king  as 
opposed  to  the  Roman  Caesars.  This  bold  hy- 
pothesis which  leaves  Christianity  without  any  his- 
torical Jesus  and  makes  an  ideal-poem  of  the  second 
century  its  source,  was  little  regarded  at  first;  but 
lately,  it  has  been  taken  up  by  an  Englishman, 
Robertson,  who  would  explain  the  biblical  Christ  as 
a  mixture  of  heathen  and  Jewish  mythology,*  and 
again  by  Kalthoff,  a  theologian  at  Bremen,  who 
traces  it  back  to  the  social  tendencies  of  the  period 
of  the  Roman  Emperors  as  its  source.f 

The  only  importance  which  I  can  attach  to  these 
radical  mythical  hypotheses  is  that  they  form  the 
extreme  reaction  against  the  one-sided  personalistic 
theory  of  the  Romanticists,  according  to  which 
Christianity  appears  in  the  miraculous  person  of 
Jesus,  a  thing  complete,  as  Athene  is  supposed  to 
have  emerged  from  the  head  of  Jupiter;  whereby 
the  inner  connection  with  the  religious  ideas  and 
the  social  conditions  of  the  time  are  either  entirely 
overlooked  or  at  least  greatly  underestimated.  The 
more  unbiassed  the  consideration  of  the  sources  of 

*  "  Pagan  Christs,  Studies  in  Comparative  Hierology,"  by  John 
M.  Robertson.     Watts  &Co.,  London,  1903. 

f  Alb.  Kalthoff,  "Das  Christusproblem.  Grundlinien  zu  einer 
Sozialtheologie."  By  the  same  author — "  Die  Entstehung  des  Chris- 
tentums."     Diedericbs,  Leipzig,  1903  und  1904. 

18 


Introduction 

early-Christian  history  in  their  relation  to  the  alHed 
phenomena  of  the  history  of  the  period,  the  clearer 
becomes  the  persistent  conviction  that  the  origin  of 
Christianity  is  not  to  be  conceived  as  merely  the 
resultant  of  the  one  person  Jesus,  but  that  it  is  the 
product  of  a  powerful  and  many-sided  development 
of  the  ancient  world  in  which  various  factors  had 
long  been  at  work.  It  is  the  merit  of  the  latest 
champions  of  the  mythical  hypothesis  that  they 
emphasized  this  social-evolutionistic  aspect.  But  in 
their  contention  against  the  Romantic  theory,  they  , 
shoot  far  beyond  the  mark,  when  they  imagine  that 
they  will  be  able  to  explain  the  origin  of  Christianity, 
without  the  historical  Jesus,  merely  by  mass-instinct 
and  mass-tendencies. 

Is  it  thinkable  that  out  of  the  chaos  of  the  masses,  • 
the  new  congregation  could  have  formed  itself  with- 
out some  decisive  deed,  without  some  fundamental 
experience,  which  might  serve  as  the  nucleus  for  the 
crystallization  of  the  new  idea?  Everywhere  else 
in  historical  new-formations,  the  sum-total  of 
existing  energies  and  efforts  is  directed  into  one 
particular  channel  by  the  deed  of  a  heroic  person- 
ality; he  fixes  the  goal  and  gathers  them  up  into 
an  organism  possessing  vitality.  Just  so  the 
impulse  to  the  formation  of  the  Christian  congre- 
gation must  have  found  a  beginning  at  some  particu- 
lar point,  which,  according  to  the  testimony  of  the 
Apostle  Paul,  and  the  oldest  Gospels,  can  be  found 
only  in  the  person,  the  life  and  the  death  of  Jesus. 

19 


Christian  Origins 

The  preservation  of  a  golden  mean  between  a 
Romantic  personalism  which  overlooks  the  import- 
ance of  the  social  environment,  and  a  social-evolu- 
tionism which  undervalues  the  importance  of  the 
personality  in  history — that  seems  to  me  to  be  the 
task  of  the  historian  here  as  elsewhere. 

Half  a  century  ago,  the  great  church-historian 
Ferdinand  Christian  Baur  of  Tubingen  pointed  out 
this  right  path.  He  was  the  first  one  who  dared  to 
apply  to  the  history  of  Christianity  the  thought  of 
*'  evolution,"  which  had  long  been  normative  in 
every  other  department  of  science;  he  applied  that 
thought  with  an  earnest  zeal  which  is  remote  even 
to-day  from  most  of  the  theologians,  supernatural- 
ists,  rationalists  and  romanticists.  His  opponents  re- 
proached him  with  a  lack  of  understanding  of  the 
person  of  Jesus :  this  was  a  gross  injustice  so  far  as 
historical  understanding  is  concerned.  He  was  most 
hearty  in  his  recognition  of  the  moral  greatness  of 
Jesus ;  but  his  sober  and  upright  sense  of  truth  did 
restrain  him  from  the  Romantic  deification  of  the 
person  of  Jesus  and  his  segregation  from  all  histor- 
ical conditions  and  limitations. 

As  a  scholar  versed  in  ancient  religion  and  phi- 
losophy, Baur  could  not  possibly  grant  that  the  world 
before  Christ  had  lacked  God  and  spirit  entirely  and 
had  been  immersed  completely  in  the  darkness  of 
heathen  error;  he  did  find  there  various  seeds  of 
truth,  which  were  positively  preparatory  for  and 
J    achieved  their  fullest  development  in  Christianity. 

20 


Introduction 

If  it  is  true,  then,  that  the  varied  tendencies  of  the 
spirit  of  the  times  were  gathered  together  into  a 
higher  unity  in  Christianity,  then  it  could  not  pos- 
sibly have  appeared  in  the  individual  life  of  Jesus  as 
a  fixed  and  finished  product,  so  that  all  which  fol- 
lowed, as  the  Romanticists  claim,  must  be  regarded 
as  apostasy,  degeneration  and  diseased  conditions. 
The  origin  of  Christianity  is  to  be  thought  of  as  a 
developing  process,  in  which  various  other  factors 
were  working  along  with  the  life-work  of  Jesus; 
these  united  and  adjusted  themselves  gradually  hut 
not  without  inner  contradictions  and  struggles. 

This  thought,  that  the  origin  of  Christianity  is 
not  to  be  understood  as  a  single  miraculous  deed  but 
as  a  developing  process,  in  which  the  life  and  death 
of  Jesus  moved  the  tendencies  of  the  time  to  act  and 
react  upon  one  another  until  they  finally  united 
in  the  new-formation  of  the  Christian  Church :  this 
was  Baur's  fruitful  discovery,  and  science  will  not 
and  can  not  lose  sight  of  it  again.  Whatever  has 
been  brought  to  light  by  the  industrious  research  of 
the  last  decades  in  the  way  of  new  knowledge  con- 
cerning heathen,  Jewish  and  early-Christian  religious 
history, — and  it  has  not  been  a  little* — has  not  dis- 

*  Among  the  representatives  of  this  branch  of  science  let  me  make 
particular  mention  of  Weiszacker,  Baur's  successor  in  the  professor's 
chair  at  Tubingen,  Hilgenfeld,  Holtzmann,  Holsten,  Hausrath, 
Schiirer,  Weiss,  Harnack,  Wellhausen,  Gunkel,  Julicher,  Bousset, 
Schmiedel.  The  science  of  early-Christian  religious  history  is  much 
indebted  to  these  men  and  others  for  their  learned  works,  however 
often  their  results  diverge  on  single  points. 

21 


/ 


Christian  Origins 

proved  Baur's  fundamental  thought,  but  has  merely 
corrected  and  supplemented  it  in  details.  For,  to 
be  sure,  the  picture  of  the  early  development  of 
Christianity  will  be  a  more  varied  and  more  intricate 
one  than  even  Baur  supposed.  Our  acknowledg- 
ment of  gratitude  for  this  acquisition  of  increasingly 
accurate  knowledge  is  the  more  freely  given  by  rea- 
son of  the  fact  that  the  fundamental  thought  of 
Baur's  development  theory  has  not  been  dissipated 
but  is  confirmed  thereby. 

By  what  means  did  Baur  arrive  at  this  deeper 
insight  into  the  origin  of  Christianity?  Not  by 
lucky  chance,  not  by  a  priori  philosophic  speculation 
(as  is  often  foolishly  declared),  but  by  criticism  of 
the  biblical  sources,  the  Pauline  Epistles  and  the 
Gospels,  a  thorough  criticism  free  from  all  dogmatic 
presuppositions.  This  criticism  of  the  Epistles  and 
Acts  of  the  Apostles  produced  a  picture  of  the  apos- 
tolic period,  differing  greatly  from  the  traditional; 
it  was  a  period  of  lively  struggle  by  which  Christian 
freedom  from  Mosaic  law  had  to  be  wrung  labori- 
ously from  Jewish-Christian  conservatism. 

More  important  still  was  Baur's  analysis  of  the 
fourth  Gospel,  which  resulted  in  the  knowledge  that 
not  the  Apostle  John,  but  some  Hellenistic  theologian 
of  the  second  century  was  the  author  of  the  book; 
also,  that  it  was  not  and  did  not  purport  to  be  a 
historical  work,  but  a  doctrinal  one,  on  Jesus,  the 
logos  incarnate  or  the  Son  of  God  from  Heaven; 
further,    that    this    Gospel,    accordingly,    must    be 

22 


Introduction 

removed  from  the  group  of  historical  source-books 
on  the  Hfe  and  teachings  of  Jesus  and  must  be  placed 
among  the  documents  relating  to  the  history  of  the 
post-Apostolic  Church.  The  New  Testament  writ- 
ings in  general  were  valued  by  Baur  as  original 
documents  treating  of  the  various  phases  and  tend- 
encies .of  development  of  the  early-Christian  faith 
and  congregational  life;  thus,  the  origin  of  the 
New  Testament  became  an  essential  part  of  the 
origin  of  the  Christian  Church  itself. 

So  the  fetter  of  Church  tradition  was  broken, — 
that  tradition  which  held  that  all  New  Testament 
writings  were  of  inspired  apostolic  origin  because,  as 
we  shall  see  later,  of  purely  dogmatic  presupposi- 
tions, which  made  a  historical  understanding  of  these 
writings  impossible  from  the  beginning.  Baur's 
keenness  and  unusual  loyalty  to  truth  were  required 
to  break  this  fetter  of  dogmatic  tradition,  which 
sealed  the  entrance  to  the  beginnings  of  our  religion 
for  every  historian  as  tightly  as  the  Cherub's  flam- 
ing sword  did  the  gates  of  Paradise. 

True,  others  before  Baur  had  rattled  the  tradi- 
tional fetter  by  doubting  the  "genuineness  "  of  one 
or  the  other  writing,  but  little  was  gained  thereby 
for  the  historical  understanding.  Baur  was 
the  first  one  who  had  found  courage  enough  to 
free  himself  from  the  traditional  fiction;  heedless 
of  the  dogmatic  romancing  of  the  church-fathers, 
he  scrutinized  the  New  Testament  writings  with  his 
keen,  sound  eyes  to  see  to  what  time  and  place  their 

23 


Christian  Origins 

peculiar  content,  religious  character,  and  historical 
motives  might  belong.  These  writings  ceased  to  be 
oracles  of  apostolic  inspiration  for  him  as  they  are 
for  the  Church-belief ;  they  became  witnesses  to  the 
natural  origin  and  growth  of  the  Christian  religion 
and  Church.  Such  a  long  step  forward  was  this, 
that  single  errors  in  the  judgment  of  certain  writ- 
ings cannot  offset  it. 

When  we  hear  "  Return  to  Tradition  "  recom- 
mended to  us  to-day,  that  means  nothing  else  than  a 
return  to  the  fundamental  Catholic  principle  that 
dogma  must  rule  history ;  for  the  tradition  concern- 
ing the  New  Testament  is  the  child  of  the  old  church- 
dogma,  and  the  motive  for  such  a  return  is  in  its 
turn  dogmatic,  namely,  the  wish  to  employ  the  post- 
apostolic  writings  as  the  witnesses  for  the  apostolic 
period  and  to  substitute  for  a  gradual  becoming  a 
completed  thing,  existent  from  the  beginning,  mys- 
terious in  origin  and  incommensurable  in  authority. 

This  reactionary  Romanticism  cannot  lead  us 
astray;  we  still  maintain  that  the  origin  of  Chris- 
tianity can  be  understood  as  actual  history  only, 
when  dogma  no  longer  rules  history,  but  when  this 
history  is  studied  according  to  the  same  principles 
and  methods  as  every  other.  Only  the  presupposi- 
tion common  to  all  historical  research  is  permissible 
in  this  case;  we,  too,  can  work  only  from  the 
analogy  of  human  experience,  the  similarity  of 
human  nature  in  the  past  and  in  the  present,  from 
the  causal  connection  of  all  external  happenings  and 

24 


Introduction 

inner  psychical  experience;  in  short,  from  the  law- 
abiding  order  of  the  universe  which  ever  conditioned 
all  human  experience.  Would  you  call  that  "  a 
presupposition"?  I  will  not  dispute  your  answer, 
but  remember,  it  is  the  presupposition,  without 
which  there  can  be  no  such  thing  as  scientific  knowl- 
edge :  we  may  justly  reckon  it  as  one  of  the  axioms, 
not  to  be  accepted  by  one  or  the  other  at  his  own 
will,  but  one  of  the  fundamental  conditions  and 
forms  of  all  normal  activity  of  the  human  spirit. 


'       ^       OF  THE     '^ 

I    UNIVERSITY 

V  OF 


25 


Book  I 

PREPARATION    AND 

FOUNDATION   OF 

CHRISTIANITY 


PREPARATION  OF  CHRISTIANITY 
IN  GREEK  PHILOSOPHY 


PREPARATION     OF     CHRISTIANITY     IN 
GREEK    PHILOSOPHY 

« 

In  order  to  understand  the  origin  of  Christianity 
as  a  historical  development,  the  preparation  in  the 
ante-Christian  world  demands  first  consideration. 
The  old  apologists  and  church-fathers  were  aware 
of  the  fact  that  this  preparation  was  to  be  found 
not  only  in  the  Jewish  religion,  but  to  an  equal 
extent  in  Greek  philosophy.  For  example,  Justin 
the  Martyr  says  of  Heraditus  and  Socrates,  the 
philosophers,  that  they  were  Christians  even  though 
they  were  commonly  considered  Atheists;  accord- 
ing to  Clemens  of  Alexandria  the  philosophy  of  the 
Greeks  was  for  them  an  education  to  Christ,  just  as 
the  Mosaic  law  was  for  the  Hebrews.  Inasmuch  as 
Greek  philosophy  influenced  the  Judaism  of  the  last 
few  centuries  before  Christ,  it  seems  better  suited  to 
our  purpose   to  make  that  the  starting-point. 

As  early  as  five  hundred  years  before  Christ,  the 
Ionian  philosophers  Heraclitus  and  Xenophanes  had 
subjected  the  mythical  folk-faith  of  the  Greeks  to 
destructive  criticism.  Foolish  it  is,  so  they  said, 
to  conceive  the  deity  after  the  image  of  man; 
blasphemous  to  ascribe  human  shortcomings  and 
wickedness  to  it;  useless  to  worship  it  with  bloody 
animal-sacrifice.      Over   against   a   multiplicity   of 

31 


Christian  Origins 

gods  they  set  up  one  god ;  neither  in  figure  nor  in 
thought  Hke  the  mortal,  he  is  the  vitaHzing  spirit  and 
the  governing  reason  which  underHes  all  the  change 
of  phenomena.  Soon^naxagoras,  the  friend  of  the 
Athenian  statesman  Pericles,  rose  superior  to  this 
nature-pantheism  and  achieved  the  thought  of  the 
supermundane  spirit,  the  cause  of  order  in  the  uni- 
verse. But  it  was  Socrates  who  called  into  being  the 

^  decisive  movement  of  a  moral  world-view  which 
resulted  in  the  suppression  of  heathen  naturalism; 
of  him  it  is  said  correctly  that  he  brought  phi- 
losophy down  from  heaven  to  earth. 

Socrates  held  it  to  be  his  God-given  mission  to 
teach  the  recognition  not  of  external  nature,  but  of 
man  as  a*  moral  being,  and  by  the  development  of 

X    his  insight  to  educate  him  to  virtue.     In  him,  for  the 

•  first  time,  the  great  thought  of  "  autonomous " 
(self-lawgiving)  personality  found  powerful  expres- 
sion. Not  the  opinion  and  the  wish  of  the  masses 
constituted  authority  for  him,  but  he  hearkened  to 
the  inner  voice  of  his  reason  and  his  conscience 
("daemonion"  he  called  it).  Of  his  scholars  he 
demanded  self-knowledge,  independent  testing  of 
traditional  opinions,  action  based  on  personal  insight 
and  belief  in  the  good.     Therewith  he  set  himself 

\  in  opposition  to  the  principle  of  the  authority  of 
custom,  society  and  tradition  of  the  state,  on  which 
ancient  society  rested.  This  deep-rooted  contradic- 
tion was  the  reason  why  the  Athenian  judges  con- 
demned him  to  death ;  he  died  the  first  blood-witness 

32 


Preparation  of  Christianity  in  Greek  Philosophy 

of  "philosophy,"  tliat  is,  the  individual  spirit 
awakening  to  the  consciousness  of  its  own  peculiar 
rights.  In  Plato's  portrayal  of  this  witness  to  truth 
who  was  loyal  unto  death  to  his  profession,  to  his 
divine  mission,  of  the  moral  education  of  men,  who 
met  his  end  with  pious  submission  and  joyous  calm, 
we  stand  face  to  face  with  a  greatness  and  moral 
spirit  rising  far  above  his  teachings ;  it  is  the  spirit 
of  a  new  epoch  in  history,  which  reveals  itself  in  the 
person  of  Socrates  by  his  inner  self-certainty  and 
pious  loyalty  to  conviction.  Thus  we  may  we'll  loojc 
upon  him  as  a  forerunner  and  a  prophet  of  Chris- 
tianity. 

Among  the  pupils  of  Socrates,  who  developed  the 
teachings  of  their  master  in  various  directions,  there 
was  no  thinker  so  independent  and  so  bold  as  Plato. 
The  Socratic  contradiction  of  the  two  kinds  of 
knowledge  (the  untrue  opinion  and  the  true  con- 
ceptual knowing)  ramified  into  two  worlds  in  the 
vision  of  the  poet-philosopher  Plato.  The  one 
became  the  world  of  the  sensual  and  the  ever-chang- 
ing phenomena  which  are  akin  to  ephemeral  shadow- 
pictures  without  truth  or  substance;  and  the  other 
became  the  world  of  eternal  prototypes  or  "  ideas," 
which  the  senses  cannot  perceive  and  the  thinking 
reason  alone  grasps  and  knows  to  be  the  true  reality 
behind  the  illusion-world  of  the  senses.  The  super- 
sensual  world  of  ideas,  originating  in  a  concept- 
poem,  crystallized  into  the  sum-total  of  all  ideal, 
values  for  Plato;,  in  them  our  spiritual  life  would 
find  its  true  content  and  its  eternal  home. 

33 


Christian  Origins 

Thereupon,  it  was  the  psychical  doctrine  of  the 
ancient  Orphic  poets  and  seers  which  Plato  was  able 
to  bring  into  fruitful  alliance  with  his  teaching  of 
ideas.  Souls,  so  he  taught,  originate  in  the  super- 
sensual  world  of  ideas,  with  which  they  are  related,; 
theirs  is  a  portion  of  the  idea  of  life,  therefore  they 
are  being,  self-moved,  unbegotten  and  necessarily 
immortal.  Their  descent  to  this  world  of  earth  and 
their  union  with  the  earthly  body,  these  are  the  con- 
sequences of  an  intellectual  Fall,  the  sin  consisting 
of  an  excess  of  the  ignoble  instinct  dragging  them 
down  to  the  sensual,  over  that  reasoning  part  which 
strives  to  look  upward  at  divine  truth  and  beauty. 
Hence,  according  to  Plato,  man's  task  is  to  free  him- 
self from  the  hindrance  of  the  body  and  elevate  him- 
self to  the  world  of  the  ideal  good  whence  he  came. 
Being  full  of  evil,  man  must  attempt  to  fly  this 
world  of  the  senses  as  rapidly  as  possible  and  go 
thither ;  but  this  flight  consists  in  the  achievement  of 
the  closest  likeness  to  God,  and  this  is  done  by  being 
righteous  and  pious  with  insight. 

When  a  soul  persists  in  cleanliness  from  the  body 
as  behooves  its  divine  nature,  and  prepares  itself  for 
death  by  perpetual  striving  after  wisdom,  then  it 
may  hope  to  go  later  to  its  like,  the  invisible  and 
eternal  and  divine,  where  a  happy  state  awaits  it, 
a  life  of  bliss  with  the  gods,  free  from  error  and 
passion  and  all  other  mortal  illi.  But  those  souls 
which  cling  to  the  sensual  and  hate  the  spiritual,  are 
held  to  the  earth  by  their  low  instinct  and  are 

34 


Preparation  of  Christianity  in  Greek  Philosophy 

dragged  after  death  into  new  bodies,  animal  or 
human,  each  after  its  own  kind.  Only  those  souls 
attain  repose  in  the  gods  which  have  withstood  the 
desires  of  the  body,  sought  salvation  and  purification 
through  philosophy  and  nourished  themselves  by  a 
continued  vision  of  the  true  and  the  divine.  Thus 
Plato  converts  the  Orphic  teaching  of  the  soul  into 
an  ethical  idealism,  which  in  its  youthful  exuberance 
threatens  to  go  far  beyond  the  world  or  even  to 
forsake  it  entirely,  but  which  in  truth  merely  gives 
the  spirit  its  power  to  break  the  chain  of  crude  nature 
and  become  master  of  the  world.- 

Plato's  teaching  of  God  shows  the  same  rising 
above  nature  to  the  moral  spirit.  He  takes  up  the 
world-regulating  spirit  taught  by  Anaxagoras,  but 
finds  it  inadequate  because  the  thought  of  a  teleolog- 
ical  world-government  is  not  seriously  employed.^  In 
order  to  supply  this  defect,  Plato  makes  the  divine 
spirit  one  with  the  "  idea  of  the  good^"  which  he 
fixes  as  the  highest  purpose-cause  of  the  world  and 
describes  as  the  creative  reason  of  being  as  well  as 
of  knowledge,  just  as  the  sun  in  the  physical  world 
causes  the  sight  of  things  as  well  as  their  growth. 
Thus  conceived,  the  ideas  appear  as  the  purpose- 
thoughts  of  the  creative  spirit  of  deity,  which  became 
real  in  the  actual  world,  just  so  far  as  space  and 
time  permitted.  The  reason  which  constrained  the 
prime  mover  of  all  to  create  the  world,  Plato  assigns 
to  his  goodness;  because  he  is  good,  hence  free 
from  envy,  he  wished  that  all  should  be  as  like  to 
him  as  possible.     Therefore,  he  created  the  world  in 

35 


Christian  Origins 

his  own  image, — the  most  beautiful,  perfect  creature, 
his  only-begotten  son,  who  became  a  visible  God. 
The  presupposition  is  that  the  world  is  a  living 
being,  an  organism  possessed  of  a  soul;  and,  inas- 
much as  that  all-permeating  soul,  the  world  soul,  is 
the  most  immediate  image  and  emanation  of  the 
deity,  Plato  could  describe  the  world  as  the  second 
god  and  only  begotten  Son  of  the  Father  and  prime 
mover  of  the  universe, — a  thought,  in  which  we  may 
recognize  one  of  the  germs  of  the  subsequent  doc- 
trine of  the  Trinity. 

That,  however,  is  but  one  aspect  of  the  Platonic 
view  of  the  world,  struggling  with  the  other,  that 
the  world  is  only  an  imperfect,  distorted  image  of 
the  divine  world  of  ideas  divided  in  time  and  space,^ 
— obscuring  real  being  more  than  revealing  it,  more 
shadow  than  reality.  This  latter  aspect  corresponds 
to  the  world-shunning,  ascetic  side  of  Plato's  ethics, 
while  the  former  harmonizes  with  the  world-shaping 
practical-social  side.  Although  the  old  Hellenic  joy 
of  the  world  is  disturbed  by  this  earnest  recognition 
of  the  chasm  between  idea  and  reality,  yet  the  pious 
confidence  in  a  wise  and  benevolent  providence 
ever  preserves  this  idealistic  thinker  from  pessimistic 
grovelling  and  gloom ;  providence  guides  all  so  that 
it  must  co-operate  for  the  welfare  of  the  whole;  it 
has  placed  each  in  that  position  which  will  enable 
him  to  contribute  most  to  the  triumph  of  the  good, 
insofar  as  he  himself  wishes  the  good.  For  it  is 
Plato's  conviction  that  freedom  and  responsibility 

36 


Preparation  of  Christianity  in  Greek  Philosophy 

for  individual  volition  and  action  are  not  excluded 
by  divine  providence,  but  are  presupposed  thereby. 
He  emphasizes  this  particularly  by  pointing  out  that 
a  divine  judgment  will  come  upon  the  sinner^  if  not 
in  the  world  here,  with  greater  certainty  in  the 
world  beyond. 

On  the  basis  of  this  religious  world-view,  the 
ethics  of  Plato  rests ;  it  is  essentially  different  from 
the  ancient  Greek  utilitarian  ethics  in  its  strong 
emphasis  of  the  absolute  value  of  the  good.  True 
morality,  according  to  Plato,  is  not  the  "  slave- 
ethics  "  which  restrains  from  mere  desire,  which 
seeks  to  change  pleasure  for  pleasure  like  coins,  with- 
out knowing  the  proper  coin,  for  which  everything 
ought  to  be  exchanged.  That  coin  is  virtue  founded 
on  reason,  which  loves  the  good  for  its  own  inner 
value  and  remains  loyal  to  it  under  all  circumstances. 
If  one  were  to  ask  whether  righteousness  is  more 
useful  to  men  than  unrighteousness,  then  the  ques- 
tion were  equally  as  unreasonable  as  to  ask  whether 
it  is  more  useful  to  be  healthy  than  to  be  sick,  or  to 
possess  a  capable  better  than  a  corrupted  soul.  The 
upright  man  must  be  looked  upon  as  the  happy  man, 
even  though  gods  and  men  fail  in  proper  esteem, 
though  shame  and  misery  be  his  lot;  the  wicked 
must  be  looked  upon  as  unhappy,  even  though  his 
sin  remains  hidden  from  all  the  world.  For  this 
reason,  Plato  rejects  as  immoral  the  popular  principle 
that  good  should  be  done  for  friends  and  evil  to 
enemies.     It  can  never  be  the  intention  of  the  right- 

37 


Christian  Origins 

eous  to  do  any  one  an  injury,  an  enemy  as  little  as 
a  friend.  How  near  the  wise  Greek  approaches 
Gospel  ethics  in  these  thoughts. 

Yet  Plato  stands  on  ancient  Greek  ground  again 
when  he  seeks  to  find  the  ideal  of  righteousness 
realized  not  in  the  life  of  the  individual,  but  in  the 
social,  aggregate  life  of  the  State.  His  famous  ideal 
state  is  the  logical  elaboration  of  the  genuine  Greek 
thought  of  the  aristocracy  of  spirit,  culture  and 
science ;  at  the  same  time,  it  is  the  practical  counter- 
part of  the  theoretical  dualism  in  Plato's  philosophy. 
As  idea  and  phenomenon,  the  supersensual  and  the 
sensual  are  set  up  one  against  the  other,  so  the  Pla- 
tonic state  divides  into  two  strongly  differentiated 
classes:  the  upper  class  consists  of  the  rulers  and 
guardians  of  the  state,  who  alone  have  charge  of 
public  affairs  and  are  prepared  for  their  profession 
by  a  thorough  education  in  all  the  arts  and  sciences ; 
in  their  strict  service  of  the  idea,  they  must  sacrifice 
all  private  interests,  even  those  of  property  and 
family,  and  have  a  community  of  possessions  and 
wives,  regulated  by  the  state.  The  lower  class  must 
rest  satisfied  with  the  acquisition  and  possession  of 
material  goods,  but  are  excluded  from  ideal  interests 
of  spiritual  culture  and  political  life.  This  intel- 
lectual state,  in  which  philosophers  are  the  kings, 
belongs,  after  all,  to  the  few  who  are  cultured  and 
rich  in  spirit;  it  leaves  the  others  to  their  own 
resources.  The  Gospels,  on  the  contrary,  proclaim 
the  coming  kingdom  of  God,  in  which  all  will  be 

38 


Preparation  of  Christianity  in  Greek  Philosophy 

blessed,  even  the  poor  and  the  ignorant,  the  weary 
and  the  heavy-laden.  Similar  as  they  may  be  in 
all  other  respects,  at  this  point  behold  the  vast  differ- 
ence between  Platonism  and  Christianity ! 

Next  to  Platonic  philosophy,  Stoicism  (founded 
by  Zeno  and  Chrysippos  in  the  third  century  B.  C.) 
was~1[Iie  most  important  preparation  for  Christianity 
in  the  Graeco-Roman  world.  In  opposition  to  Plato's 
dualism,  the  Stoics  returned  to  the  Pantheism  of 
Heraclitus,  and  united  with  it  the  rigid  individualism 
of  the  Cynics  and  their  proud  spirit  of  freedorn: 
They  held  the  task  of  philosophy  to  be  essentially 
practical;  it  should  lead  man  to  virtue  and  thus 
to  happiness,  by  teaching  him  a  proper  insight  into 
the  value  or  valuelessness  of  things  and  thereby 
free  him  from  the  outer  world  and  the  unreason- 
ing feelings  which  make  him  dependent  upon  it. 
V^rtpe  is  not  merely  a  part  or  a  condition  of  the 
highest  good,  but  it  is  the  highest  good  itself;  for 
it  is  the  practical  wisdom  of  living,  which  guarantees 
inner  freedom  to  men  and  equanimity  in  all  the 
circumstances  of  life.  With  enthusiastic  exaggera- 
tion the  Stoics  proclaimed  their  ideal  of  "  the  wise 
man" ;  he  alone  is  free,  happy,  rich,  beautiful,  a  true 
kmg,  poet  and  prophet,  friend  of  the  gods,  and 
their  peer  in  perfection  and  happiness.  On  the 
other  hand,  the  fool  is  bad  and  miserable  throughout, 
a  slave,  yes,  a  man  insane. 

Since  virtue  is  one  and  indivisible  and  ought  to 
be  present  in  its  entirety  or  not  at  all,  the  strict 

39 


Christian  Origins 

adherence  to  their  theory  would  divide  men  into  two 
classes,  those  who  are  perfectly  wise  and  those  com- 
pletely foolish.  Naturally,  this  abstraction  could 
not  be  carried  into  practice;  the  inevitable  limita- 
tions of  the  principle  were  accompanied  by  a  sus- 
picious uncertainty  in  practical  morals.  Besides, 
these  practical  morals  were  burdened  with  the  irre- 
concilable contradiction  of  the  unbounded  striving 
for  freedom  on  the  part  of  the  individual  and  the 
recognition  of  social  obligations  binding  the  indi- 
vidual to  society,  its  w^eal  and  woe. 

Among  the  older  Stoics,  the  former  took  preced- 
ence; this  was  shown  by  a  self-satisfied  pride  of 
virtue  and  a  rigid  sternness  which  smothered  all 
the  milder  tendencies  of  the  spirit.  The  later  Stoics 
of  the  Roman  Imperial  period,  however  (Seneca, 
Epictetus,  Marcus  Aurelius),  show  a  change  in  the 
manner  of  feeling  and  thinking,  easily  explained  by 
the  circumstances  of  that  age:  the  feeling  of  the 
solidarity  of  mankind  grows  stronger  and  sympathy 
for  their  weakness  outweighs  the  proud  condemna- 
tion; a  more  modest,  partially  pessimistic  judg- 
ment of  the  human  power  of  knowledge  and  will 
strengthens  the  religious  moods  of  humility,  of  sub- 
mission, of  trust  in  divine  aid  and  providence. 

In  Seneca  this  change  was  peculiarly  favored  by 
the  influence  of  Plato's  philosophy.  Entirely  in 
agreement  with  Plato,  he  regards  the  body  as  the 
cause  of  the  evils  from  which  humanity  suffers ;  the 
body  is  the  galling  iron  under  which  the  divinely-re- 

40 


Preparation  of  Christianity  in  Greek  Philosophy 

lated  soul  chafes  in  darkness.  Against  the  burden- 
some flesh  and  its  downward  tug,  the  soul  is  ever 
struggling,  ever  striving  toward  the  source,  whence 
it  was  sent,  where  eternal  rest  awaits  it.  This  passing 
life  is  but  the  prologue  of  that  better  and  longer  life. 
Hence,  our  earthly  possessions  are  to  be  looked  upon 
as  the  furnishings  of  an  inn,  from  which  we  must 
journey  on;  we  can  carry  out  no  more  than  we 
have  brought  in.  We  ought  have  no  fear  of  death ; 
it  is  the  birthday  of  the  eternal  which  releases  us 
from  the  thralldom  of  earth.  It  is  the  task  of 
philosophy  to  prepare  us  for  this  end.  Philosophy 
teaches  us  to  know  our  weakness,  awakens  us  from 
the  deep  sleep  of  error,  demands  betterment  of  the 
will  and  thus  produces  an  inner  conversion,  which 
is  but  the  initiation  of  a  continuous  improvement. 
In  order  to  win  the  prize  of  freedom,  we  must  take 
up  the  unceasing  struggle  against  our  desires  and 
sins;  we  must  throw  off  that  which  gnaws  at  the 
heart,  even  though  the  heart  itself  be  torn  from  its 
roots.  But  this  work  of  self -emancipation  and  puri- 
fication must  be  accompanied  by  kindness  toward 
others  and  active  love  of  humankind.  We  must  feel 
ourselves  to  be  members  of  one  great  body.  Nature 
has  made  us  all  out  of  the  same  matter  and  created 
us  for  the  same  ends ;  she  has  implanted  the  love  for 
one  another,  social  instincts,  propriety  and  justice. 
Nature's  order  makes  the  doing  of  ill  worse  than  the 
suffering  of  injury.  Consequently,  we  ought  to 
practice  humanity  toward  all,  toward  the  divinely- 

41 


Christian  Origins 

related  soul  of  the  slave  as  well  as  that  of  the 
foreign  comrade,  the  fellow-citizen  of  the  greater 
Fatherland  which  compasses  the  world, — these 
souls  ought  to  be  respected ;  for,  we  are  born  in  one 
kingdom  of  God,  and  obedience  to  Him  is  freedom. 
This  milder,  humane  ethics  of  later  Stoicism  corre- 
sponds to  a  deep-seated  religious  tendency :  God  is 
no  longer  considered  merely  an  energy  at  work 
throughout  the  universe,  but  it  is  the  wise  and 
benevolent  Providence,  to  whom  we  may  humbly 
submit  with  perfect  confidence  in  his  guidance — as 
the  holy  spirit  of  the  good,  making  its  presence 
known  within  us.  Seneca  says  that  God  assumes  a 
paternal  attitude  toward  the  good  and  loves  them 
manfully;  amid  pain  and  labor,  he  suffers  them  to 
gather  true  strength.  Therefore  the  pious  should 
say:  I  am  compelled  to  nothing,  I  suffer  nothing 
contrary  to  my  will,  I  do  not  serve  God  slavishly, 
but  I  am  in  accord  with  him,  I  follow  him  ^Vith 
all  my  heart  and  there  is  no  compulsion.  The 
proper  worship  of  God  consists  in  the  recognition 
of  the  divine  rulership  of  the  world  and  in  the 
imitation  of  divine  goodness;  following  His 
example,  we  ought  to  give  even  to  the  ingrate,  fcr 
the  sun  rises  upon  the  godless,  the  sea  spreads  its 
bosom  for  the  pirate,  the  wind  blows  favorably  not 
only  for  the  good,  and  the  rain  falls  on  the  fields  of 
the  blasphemer.  Not  temples  and  not  images  are 
needed  for  the  adoration  of  God,  for  God  is  near 
thee ;  he  is  with  thee,  he  is  within  thqe.     For,  in  us 

4« 


Preparation  of  Christianity  in  Greek  Philosophy 

there  dwells  the  holy  Spirit  as  the  observant  guard- 
ian of  our  good  and  evil;  as  we  treat  him,  so  he 
treats  us.  Without  God,  no  one  is  a  good  man; 
else  how  could  he  rise  superior  to  fate  without  God's 
help?  God  alone  gives  us  great  and  noble  inten- 
tions ;  God  dwells  in  each  good  man.  Divine  seeds 
are  strewn  iff  the  human  bodies;  where  they  find 
tender  care,  there  they  take  root  and  grow  to  a 
likeness  of  their  prototypes.  In  the  vision  of  great 
human  models  lies  the  means  of  developing  these 
divine  seeds;  hence  Seneca  demands  of  us  that  we 
"  attract  "  the  spirit  of  a  great  man,  cast  a  look  into 
the  soul  of  a  good  man  and  see  in  him  the  picture  of 
sublimest  virtue,  radiant  with  nobility  and  peace; 
before  such  a  picture  we  would  stand  in  awe  and 
consuming  love.  If  our  eyes  were  cleansed,  we 
would  even  discover  the  picture  of  virtue  under  the 
shell  of  the  body;  under  the  stress  of  poverty, 
degradation  and  shame,  we  would  recognize  it  and 
the  vision  of  its  loveliness  would  delight  us  though 
clad  in  ugliest  garb. 

It  is  not  surprising  that  such  expressions  gave 
many  the  impression  that  Seneca  must  have  known 
Jesus  Christ  and  because  of  the  sight  of  him,  spoken 
in  such  enthusiastic  terms  of  the  power  of  the  moral 
ideals  exhibited  by  one  personality.  But,  without 
doubt,  such  is  not  the  case ;  such  expressions  on  the 
part  of  the  Stoic  philosopher  have  greater  value  for 
the  historian,  just  because  they  are  not  dependent  on 
the  Christian  Gospels;    they  are  of  greater  impor- 

43 


Christian  Origins 

tance  as  witnesses  of  a  widespread  moral-religious 
manner  of  thought  and  tendency  in  the  Graeco- 
Roman  world  of  those  days, — closely  related  to  the 
Christian  and  preparing  heathen  soil  for  the  Gospels. 
This  was  an  ethics  which  led  men  to  look  within  and 
freed  them  from  the  allurements  and  the  terrors  of 
the  world ;  it  purified  man's  soul  by  demanding  con- 
trol of  the  passions,  particularly  sensuality ;  it  taught 
man  to  recognize  in  inner  freedom  and  purity  the 
dignity  of  the  human  personality,  and  it  gave  full 
force  to  the  respect  for  man  as  such ;  in  the  divinely- 
related,  reasoning  nature  of  man,  finally,  it  found 
the  common  bond  of  brotherhood  of  all  men,  irre- 
spective of  rank  or  nationality  and  from  this  con- 
viction evolved  the  motive  for  a  new  and  crowning 
virtue,  love  of  human  brothers,  humanity.  (In 
this  sense,  the  word  humanitas  was  first  used  by  the 
Stoics.) 

This  system  of  ethics  was  built  up  on  a  religious 
world-view,  in  which  there  was  spiritualization  and 
moralization  just  as  there  had  been  in  heathen 
Naturalism.  The  popular  gods  of  polytheism  lost 
their  meaning ;  some  became  symbols  for  powers  of 
nature,  others  became  subordinate  deities  (similar 
in  nature  to  the  angels  of  the  Bible),  who  no  longer 
hindered  the  uniform  world-rule  of  the  one  highest 
God,  prime-mover  and  governor  of  the  world.  All 
the  naturalistic  traits  and  human  passions  which 
mythical  tradition  had  attributed  to  the  gods,  were 
not  to  be  found  in  the  nature  of  this  world-governing 

44 


Preparation  of  Christianity  in  Greek  Philosophy 

God;  He  was  thought  as  perfect  reason  and  good- 
ness; his  government  as  a  wise  providence,  pater- 
nally caring  for  us  and  in  his  educative  wisdom 
regulating  even  evil  as  a  means  for  the  best.  As  a 
reasoning  being,  man  feels  himself  intimately  related 
to  this  world-governing  reason ;  in  himself,  he  feels 
the  presence  of  God  as  a  holy  Spirit,  as  a  warning 
and  wakeful  conscience,  as  a  power  making  for  good 
and  for  elevation  beyond  the  world.  Finally,  this 
religious  experience  serves  as  a  guarantee  for  the 
hope  that  the  divinely-related  soul  after  separation 
from  its  earthly  body  will  find  in  the  celestial  world 
of  light  that  highest  freedom,  as  well  as  peace  and 
quiet,  which  could  only  be  striven  for  here  below. 

The  Stoic  philosophy  of  the  Imperial  period  had 
taken  this  worldly  hope  from  the  philosophy  of  Plato 
and  the  wisdom  of  the  Orphic  mysteries.  In  this 
ethical  hero-worship  to  a  certain  degree,  Seneca 
rationalized  the  belief  (customary  in  the  rites  of  the 
Orphic-Pythagorean  and  other  mysteries)  in  revela- 
tion-authorities and  salvation-mecjiators.  In  gen- 
eral, that  idealistic  view  of  the  world,  found  most 
among  the  later  Stoics,  may  be  designated  as  the  first 
attempt  to  combine  the  rapture  of  religious  mysti- 
cism with  the  ideals  of  a  rational  ethics ;  therewith,  a 
step  was  taken  toward  the  unification  and  purifica- 
tion of  religion  and  ethics,  which  Christianity 
achieved.  This  was  beyond  the  power  of  Stoicism, 
because  its  ethical  idealism  was  too  abstract  to  con- 
struct a  religion  and  because  its  religion  was  not 

45 


Christian  Origins 

wholly    free    from    the    popular    polytheism    and 
naturalistic  pantheism. 

Stoicism  grasped  with  remarkable  clearness  the 
fundamental  religious  problem  of  the  connection  of 
the  moral  freedom  of  man  and  his  dependence  on 
God ;  but  it  did  not  solve  the  problem,  and  it  could 
not  have  done  so,  because  the  freedom  of  man  was 
taken  in  the  negative  sense  of  the  withdrawal  from 
the  external  world  into  his  own  soul,  and  not  in  the 
positive  sense  of  the  self-submission  of  man  to  the 
absolute  divine  purpose  of  the  world.  The  Stoic 
teaching  of  purpose  confined  itself  to  nature  and 
either  lost  itself  in  trifles  or  stood  helpless  and  re- 
signed before  the  great  evils  of  the  world.  The  tele- 
ological  consideration  of  history  from  the  viewpoint 
of  a  divine  education  of  the  race  for  the  purpose  of 
realizing  the  moral  ideal  in  each  and  every  human 
being — that  was  entirely  foreign  to  the  individualis- 
tic, unhistorical  mode  of  Stoic  thinking.  Therefore 
its  pious  submission  lacked  the  moral  enthusiasm  of 
that  love,  which  at  once  loses  and  finds  itself  while 
striving  for  God's  highest  purpose  and  the  common 
good  of  all.  This  true  synthesis  of  moral  freedom 
and  religious  dependence  did  not  appear  before 
Christianity  brought  it.  In  more  than  one  way, 
Stoicism  prepared  the  way  for  it,  but  had  nothing  to 
take  its  place;  rather,  by  concession  to  the  popular 
belief  and  worship  of  the  gods.  Stoicism  sank  to  the 
former  level  of  Nature-religion  and  ended  in  a  slav- 
ish superstitious  belief  in  demons,  oracles  and  prodi- 
gies. 

46 


^       OF  THE  \ 

UNIVERSITY   ) 

OF 


THE  JEWISH-GREEK 
PHILOSOPHY   OF   PHILO 


THE    JEWISH-GREEK    PHILOSOPHY    OF 

PHILO 

Of  greatest  importance  for  the  preparation  of 
Christianity  was  the  combination  of  Greek  phi- 
losophy and  Jewish  rehgion,  which  happened  among 
Hellenic  culfured  Jews  of  Alexandria  under  the 
rulership  of  the  Ptolemys  in  the  two  centuries  imme- 
diately preceding  Christ.  In  the  writings  of  the 
philosopher  and  theologian  Philo,  an  Alexandrian 
Jew  (born  20  B.  C,  died  54  A.  D.),  the  ripest  fruit 
of  this  combination  has  been  preserved  for  us. 
Equally  versed  in  Rabbinic  learning  and  in  Greek 
philosophy,  particularly  Plato  and  the  Stoics,  he 
strove  to  interpret  the  latter  into  the  Old  Testament 
writings ;  for  this  purpose,  he  employed  the  method 
of  allegorical  explanation,  not  original  with  him,  but 
for  the  first  time  applied  with  such  boldness  and 
thoroughness. 

In  this  fashion,  a  uniform  system  of  thought 
could  not  be  built  up ;  at  every  point  the  differences 
in  the  artificially  fitted  thought-series  was  apparent. 
Above  all  is  this  true  of  his  teaching  of  God,  in 
which  philosophic  exclusiveness  stands  in  unme- 
diated  contradiction  to  religious  belief  in  revelations. 
According  to  Philo,  God  is  elevated  beyond  the 
world  throughout,  and  incomparable  with  any  finite 

49 


Christian  Origins 

being;  so  that  there  can  be  no  imperfection,  nay 
more,  no  particular  attribute  can  be  predicated  of 
God.  He  is  better  than  the  good  and  the  beautiful, 
purer  than  the  one;  man  cannot  know  what  he  is 
or  that  he  is  not;  he  is  neither  in  time  nor  space, 
knows  neither  change  nor  needs;  he  is  absolute 
being. 

Such  Agnosticism  cannot  be  a  halting-place  for 
the  religious  thinker,  and  he  adds  positive  predicates, 
arising  from  the  relation  of  God  to  the  world;  God 
is  the  effective  cause  of  all  and  the  reason  in  all, 
comparable  to  light  and  the  human  soul,  but  differing 
from  every  finite  thing  in  that  it  is  always  active  and 
I  never  passive.  To  this_Stoic  attribute  of  the  all- 
,)roducing  power  of  God,  Philo  adds  the  Platonic 
I  attribute  of  his  goodness  and  grace;  therein  lay  the 
cause  of  the  creation  of  the  world,  that  preserves  the 
harmony  of  the  universe,  that  manifests  itself  in  the 
inexhaustible  abundance  of  kindness  which  God 
showers  upon  all  creation  and  above  all  upon  man. 
Everything  that  is  good  in  the  physical  and  moral 
world  is  God's  gift  and  only  good  can  come  directly 
from  him;  evils  are  the  punishments  imposed  by 
the  subordinate  spirits,  but  at  the  command  of  God. 
That  grace  goes  before  righteousness  with  God  and 
that  He  stretches  forth  the  saving  hand  even  to 
sinners,  was  an  important  conviction  to  Philo;  the 
Platonic  teaching  of  God's  goodness  without  envy 
may  have  contributed  thereto,  equally  as  well  as 
the  God-idea  of  such  Prophets  as  Jeremiah  and 

50 


The  Jewish-Greek  Philosophy  of  Philo 

Hosea.  However,  this  religious  conviction  of  the 
unenvying  goodness  of  God  is  opposed  to  the  dualis- 
tic  world-view,  which  Philo  shared  with  all  the 
men  of  his  period;  according  to  that  view,  the 
material  world  is  far  too  badJQX  God  to  act  upon  it 
without  mediation.  Philo  believed  that  he  had 
found  the  solution  of  this  difficulty  by  mediation  of 
the  divine  activity  through  supersensual  mediatory 
beings;  these  he  designated  partly  as  incorporeal 
powers  (Stoics),  partly  as  ideas  (Plato),  and  partly 
as  angels  (Old  Testament).  At  times  he  selects 
two  from  among  them,  Power  and  Goodness,  as  the 
highest;  then  again  he  says,  there  are  six  highest 
(the  number  of  the  Persian  Amschaspans  or  Arch- 
angels), and  among  them  the  Logos  is  first. 

This  Logos-conception,  the  pivotal  point  of  Philo' s 
system,  combines  the  Jewish  idea  of  the  creative 
word  of  revelation  w4th  the  Stoic  thought  of  the 
active,  divine  reason  in  the  world.  As  for  the 
Stoics,  so  for  Philo,  the  Logos  is  the  world-forming 
and  world-sustaining  principle  which  acts  by  separat- 
ing and  uniting  opposites,  hence  its  names,  the  bond 
the  law,  the  necessity  of  all,  or  all-permeating,  th( 
all-ordering  and  all-guiding.  But  the  Philonic 
Logos  differs  from  the  Stoic,  in  that  he  does  not 
identify  it  with  God  or  the  world  substance,  bui 
makes  it  something  intermediate  between  them;  his 
name  is  first-born  son  of  God,  oldest  Angel,  image 
and  plainly-spoken,  a  "  second  God  " ;  since  the  crea- 
tion, he  has  been  the  mediator  of  divine  revelation, 

51 


Christian  Origins 

the  model  for  all  matter,  and  at  the  same  time  the 
power  by  which  matter  was  shaped  into  the  world. 
In  the  history  of  man,  especially  in  the  history  of  the 
people  of  Israel,  he  was  from  the  beginning  the 
mediator  of  all  divine  revelation ;  at  once,  high  priest 
and  advocate  (paraclete)  of  men  before  God.  In 
general,  he  is  not  only  the  model,  but  the  continuous 
source  of  the  good  and  the  true  in  man;  those 
souls  in  which  he  dwells,  to  which  he  imparts  himself 
as  the  real  bread  from  heaven,  and  they  alone,  can 
be  saved  from  the  universal  sinfulness  and  find  the 
homeward  path  from  the  foreign  land  of  earth  to  the 
heavenly  hearth  of  souls. 

In  such  fashion,  the  Philonic  Logos  combines  the 
philosophic  thought  qfjliyine  reason  which  dwells 
in  the  world  and  in  men  with  the  theological  ideas 
of  a  personal  mediator  of  revelation  and  messenger 
of  God,  like  Hermes,  the  mythical  messenger  of  the 
gods,  whom  Stoic  theologians  regarded  as  the  per- 
sonified Logos.  Such  mediary  beings,  half  philo- 
sophical and  half  mythical,  were  favorite  subjects  of 
speculation  in  that  period  and  met  the  need  for 
something  wherewith*  to  fill  in  the  great  ga£  between 
God  and  the  world. 

Philo's  teaching  about  man  combined  Platonic  and 
Stoic  thought  with  biblical  tradition.  Philo  agreed 
with  Plato  in  looking  upon  the  earthly  body  as  a 
prison  for  the  soul  descended  from  above;  it  was 
the  root  and  seat  of  evil,  error  and  wickedness.  He 
sought  to  harmonize  this  theory  with  the  biblical 

52 


The  Jewish-Greek  Philosophy  of  Philo 

story  of  creation,  by  finding  in  the  two  narratives 
(Genesis  i  and  2)  a  twofold  creation:  First,  an 
incorporeal,  celestial,  ideal  man,  and  then  the  man  of 
earth,  a  mixture  of  angel  and  animal,  resulting  from 
the  combination  of  a  higher  part  with  matter  of 
earth.     The  salvation  of  man  from  the  thrall  of 

i  sensuality  and  his  elevation  to  the  divine  model, — • 
these  are  impossible  to  man's  unaided  powers,  but 

^  can  be  achieved  by  the  aid  of  divine  powers ;  particu- 
larly, by  aid  of  the  Logos,  descending  into  souls  and 

\  sanctifying  them  as  temples  of  God.  Man's  part 
is  but  a  passive  reception  of  the  divine  power ;  hence, 
Philo  praises  faith  as  the  royal  virtue  uniting  us  to 
God,  as  the  most  beautiful  sacrifice  which  the  pious 
can  offer,  as  the  only  possession  which  does  not 
deceive,  the  staunch  consolation  of  life,  the  abun- 
dance of  hope,  the  heritage  of  bliss.  Love  belongs 
with  faith,  as  "  the  twin  sister  of  piety."  But  the 
highest  object,  to  which  knowledge  and  activity  are 
but  leading  steps  and  means,  is,  according  to  Philo, 
the  mystical  seeing  of  God,  which  is  the  portion  of 
the  perfect  in  their  moments  of  ecstatic  rapture  when 
the  human  light  sets  before  the  rising  light  of  the 
divine.  For,  he  says,  our  imderstanding  departs 
when  the  divine  spirit  arrives,  and  it  returns  after 
the  latter  has  departed,  because  the  mortal  and  the 
immortal  cannot  dwell  together. 

At  this,  its  sublimest  height,  the  peculiar  character 
of  this  religion  reveals  itself  in  its  strength  and  in 
its  weakness :   a  sincere  piety,  a  deep  feeling  of  de- 

53 


Christian  Origins 

pendence  on  God,  an  active  longing  for  elevation 
above  everything  finite  to  a  community  with  the 
eternal  God, — in  short,  a  mysticism  of  the  pious  soul 
f  rising  far  above  the  limitations  of  the  national 
religion,  the  earthly-eudaimonistic  dreams  of  the 
Messiah  and  the  legal  formalism  of  Judaism,  a 
mysticism  with  but  one  purpose,  to  find  God  and  be 
blessed  in  Him.  But  is  this  ardent  longing  for 
salvation  and  union  of  man  with  God,  which  Philo 
voices,  really  fulfilled  ?  Could  it  be  fulfilled,  in  view 
of  the  presupposition  of  that  crass  dualism  of  God 
and  World  which  Philo  had  taken  over  from  Plato 
and  exaggerated  ?  The  union  can  take  place  only  in 
the  condition  of  unconscious  ecstasy,  in  which  all 
reasonable  thought  and  volition  are  submerged, 
because  it  is  Philo's  opinion  that  the  human  spirit 
cannot  dwell  with  the  divine. 

Despite  all  mediation,  the  antithesis  of  God  and 
man  remains  insurmountable  for  Philo;  he  cannot 
grasp  the  thought  that  the  highest  revelation  of  the 
divine  spirit  is  man's  spiritual  life  with  its  reason- 
able content  of  the  true  and  the  good.  Therefore, 
though  Philo  approaches  the  theology  of  John,  he 
stands  outside  the  threshold  of  Christianity;  he 
knows  nothing  of  an  "  incarnation  of  the  logos,"  a 
historical  and  permanent  realization  of  the  divine 
principle  in  the  personal  and  communal  life  of  God's 
children.  But  Philo  was  a  preparation  for  Chris- 
tianity, in  that  he  demanded  of  the  hellenistic 
Judaism  of  the  Dispersion  the  spirit  of  individualis- 

54 


The  Jewish-Greek  Philosophy  of  Philo 

tic,  inward-turned  piety  and  a  universally  broadened 
morality ;  therewith  he  blazed  the  way  for  an  ethical- 
spiritual  religion,  based  on  monotheism,  but  freed 
from  the  limitations  of  Judaism. 


55 


PREPARATION  OF  CHRISTIANITY 

IN  JUDAISM 


PREPARATION     OF     CHRISTIANITY     IN 

JUDAISM 

The  development  of  Palestinian  Judaism  from  the 
second  century  before  Christ  had  been  in  the  reverse 
direction;  there,  the  spirit  of  legal  and  narrow 
national  religion  implanted  by  the  lawgiver  Ezra 
triumphed  increasingly  over  the  piety  of  the 
Prophets  and  the  Psalmists,  which  survived  in  the 
hearts  of  a  few.     This  opposition  had  existed  pre- 

* 

viously  in  the  Jewish  congregation,  founded  by 
Ezra;  but  it  had  been  latent  under  the  Persian  and 
Greek  rule.,  It  did  not  become  acute  until  the  na- 
tional-religious reaction  consequent  upon  the  threat- 
ened Hellenization  of  Judaism  under  Antiochus 
Epiphanes,  the  Syrian  monarch;  the  Maccabean 
heroes  led  the  reaction  to  victory  and  ever  after  the 
Pharisees  were  its  powerful  support.  This  caused 
the  Jewish  Law  to  become  the  dividing  barrier 
which  prevented  Jewish  participation  in  Grecian  cul- 
ture, and  the  narrowing  yoke  which  was  felt  more 
keenly  by  the  conscientious  (recall  Saul- Paul !) .  But 
this  later  development  of  Judaism  must  not  cause  us 
to  forget  that  it  had  not  always  been  so.  In  the 
Judaism  of  the  fourth  and  third  centuries  B.  C.  there 
still  lived  that  deep  and  honest  piety,  classically 
expressed  in  the  Psalms;   there  were  thinkers  who 

59 


Christian  Origins 

had  kept  in  contact  with  Greek  culture,  and  regard- 
less of  national  and  legal  limitations  solved  the 
riddles  of  the  universe  according  to  their  own  ideas 
— these  were  the  authors  of  the  so-called  "  wisdom- 
books."  While  Pharisaic  legalism  is  a  negative 
preparation,  we  recognize  the  wisdom-books  and  the 
Psalms  as  a  positive  preparation  of  Christianity  in 
Judaism. 

The  individualization  of  the  religious  conscious- 
ness is  common  to  the  wisdom-books  and  the  Psalms. 
Previously  religion  had  been  a  common  possession 
of  the  people  of  Israel,  each  one  being  part  owner 
by  virtue  of  birth ;  now,  it  became  the  personal  atti- 
tude of  the  individual.  Pious  is  he  who  fears  God 
and  trusts  in  Him,  who  holds  Him  ever  in  his  sight 
and  in  his  heart,  who  is  pure  of  heart  and  upright 
in  action,  who  even  in  misfortune  clings  hopefully 
and  trustingly  to  God.  This  is  the  ideal  of  right- 
eousness as  found  in  the  Psalms,  in  the  Proverbs  and 
in  Sirach.  It  was,  as  ethical-religious  ideal,  inde- 
pendent of  the  ceremonial  law  (which  the  pious  man 
respected  as  the  unquestioned  basis  of  the  religion  of 
his  people).  He  did  not  feel  the  Law  a  burden, 
for  habit  had  made  familiar  custom  of  it;  but  he 
did  not  recognize  it  as  an  adequate  standard  of  meas- 
ure for  moral  self- judgment,  because  he  had  uncon- 
sciously grown  beyond  it.  Hence,  the  pious  con- 
sidered that  only  those  who  shared  the  pious  attitude 
belonged  to  God's  congregation ;  he  looked  upon  the 
children  of  the  world  and  the  indifferent  as  godless 

60 


Preparation  of  Christianity  in  Judaism 

people  on  the  same  plane  as  heathens,  even  though 
they  were  Jews  by  birth  and  to  all  outward  appear- 
ances observed  the  Law.  He  felt  divided  from  them 
by  a  deep  chasm,  and  hated  them  passionately ;  the 
more  their  power  and  social  standing  enabled  them 
to  rise  above  the  pious  poor  and  oppress  them,  the 
greater  his  hatred. 

If  Jewish  blood-ties  and  social  position  ceased  to 
have  weight  in  religious  estimation,  it  was  natural 
that  national  limitations  from  the  outside  world 
ceased  to  have  any  religious  importance;  univer- 
salistic  enlargement  was  the  inevitable  complement 
of  the  individualization  of  the  religious  conscious- 
ness. At  bottom,  this  was  the  logical  outcome  of 
monotheistic  belief  in  God :  the  more  intensely  the 
thought  of  the  moral  world-rule  of  one  God  was 
taken  up,  so  much  the  less  possible  was  its  limita- 
tion to  the  Jewish  nation  alone.  Therefore,  the 
great  prophet  of  the  Exile,  usually  called  the  Baby- 
lonian Isaiah,  designated  the  Jewish  people  as  the 
chosen  servant  of  God  in  the  sense  that  it  is  their 
mission  to  become  a  teacher  of  the  heathen,  a  light 
for  the  nations  dwelling  in  darkness,  a  mediator 
between  God  and  man.  The  last  Prophet,  Malachi, 
says  that  God's  name  is  great  everywhere  among  the 
nations  of  the  East  and  West  and  that  clean  offer- 
ings are  sacrificed  to  him  everywhere ;  meaning  that 
throughout  the  human  world  there  are  those  who 
acknowledge  and  serve  the  one  true  God.  In  this 
sense,  the  author  of  Job  makes  a  non-Jew  the  repre- 


Christian  Origins 

sentative  of  a  purer  belief  in  God  as  against  the 
Jewish  law  of  retribution.  And  as  in  Job,  so  in  the 
other  wisdom-books  of  that  period,  the  specifically 
Jewish  name  of  God,  Jahve,  gives  way  to  the  more 
general  names  such  as  Elohim  and  El,  Adonai  and 
Eljon,  names  in  use  among  the  heathen.  No 
longer  is  the  God  of  Israel  spoken  of,  but  the  God 
of  Heaven,  later  simply  *  Heaven.*  All  of  which 
shows  plainly  that  Universalism  ruled  not  only  the 
Jews  of  the  Dispersion  but  even  those  of  Palestine, 
and  that,  in  principle,  they  were  international  despite 
their  adherence  to  the  old  customs. 

This  individualization  of  religion  gave  rise  to  new 
religious  problems,  which  were  a  source  of  doubt 
and  unbelief  for  many,  while  for  others  they  gave 
an  impulse  to  the  deepening  of  faith.  It  was  axio- 
matic in  the  religion  of  the  Prophets,  that  divine 
righteousness  manifests  itself  by  giving  the  reward 
or  punishment  merited  by  human  action;  but  they 
thought  of  this  as  applying  only  to  the  deserts  and 
fate  of  tlie  nation  as  a  whole,  and  conceived  thus 
the  belief  involved  no  serious  difficulties.  When, 
however,  the  pious  individual  began  to  compare  his 
own  and  other  individual  happiness  or  misery  with 
the  guilt  or  the  innocence  of  each,  the  serious  ques- 
tion could  be  suppressed  no  longer :  Is  the  frequent 
experience  of  the  happiness  of  the  godless  and  the 
misery  of  the  pious  compatible  with  divine  right- 
eousness? The  answer  to  this  question  was  the 
more  difficult,  because  neither  the  Judaism  of  that 

6s 


Preparation  of  Christianity  in  Judaism 

day  nor  that  of  the  Prophets  pointed  to  a  resolution 
of  the  earthly  disharmony  in  the  retribution  of  the 
world  to  come.  They  sought  the  reward  for  right- 
eousness in  earthly  happiness  alone,  especially  in 
long  life,  children  and  prosperity;  misery  on  earth, 
particularly  sickness  and  horrible  death,  poverty  and 
shame,  these  were  signs  of  God's  disfavor  toward 
sinners.  The  world  to  come  had  not  yet  become 
their  hope ;  for  the  Prophets,  as  for  the  Psalm  and 
Proverb  writers,  an  eternal  future  awaited  the  nation 
of  God,  not  the  pious  individual;  for  from  Hades 
("Sheol"),  the  land  of  shadow  or  darkness,  of 
oblivion  or  silence,  there  is  no  return,  all  suffer  a  like 
fate  there  and  none  can  praise  God  more. 

With  these  presuppositions  it  was  indeed  no  easy 
task  to  harmonize  the  belief  in  a  just,  divine  retribu- 
tion with  the  experience  of  the  misery  of  the  pious. 
The  more  remarkable  is  the  courage  of  certain  reli- 
gious thinkers,  especially  the  author  of  Job,  who 
strove  to  solve  these  dark  riddles.  The  author 
of  Job  makes  the  friends  of  that  patient  man  repre- 
sent this  Jewish  theory  of  retribution ;  presupposing 
that  every  pain  is  righteous  return  for  some  corre- 
sponding sin  of  the  sufferer,  they  conclude  that  Job's 
great  sufferings  must  grow  out  of  heavy  and  secret 
guilt.  Possessing  a  clear  conscience,  Job  defends 
himself  by  reference  to  his  lack  of  any  conscious 
guilt;  he  appeals  from  the  God  of  tradition,  the 
supposed  wrathful  retributor  of  secret  guilt,  to  the 
true  God  of  his  belief,  the  honest  witness  and  judge 

63 


Christian  Origins 

of  hearts,  who  does  not  work  for  man  to  see,  but 
who  speaks  clearly  and  undoubtedly  in  man's  con- 
science. The  certainty  of  his  own  clear  conscience, 
the  consciousness  of  community  with  God,  which  no 
misfortune  can  shake — these  are  the  certain  guar- 
antee that,  notwithstanding  all  contrary  appearances, 
God  is  in  truth  with  him  and  for  him,  that  even  if 
it  be  not  until  after  his  death,  God  will  certainly 
appear  as  a  witness  for  him  and  preserve  Ais  honor 
before  all  the  world.  In  fact  the  poet  makes  God 
appear  to  uphold  the  pious  sufferer  against  the  sus- 
picions of  his  orthodox  friends;  God's  mouth  con- 
demns the  friends'  method  of  defending  Him  at  the 
price  of  truth  and  righteousness.  So  the  traditional 
Jewish  doctrine  of  retribution,  which  makes  external 
welfare  the  measure  of  man's  moral  worth,  is 
refuted;  the  judgment  of  moral  conscience  comes 
into  its  rights,  and  the  inner  peace  of  religious  con- 
sciousness is  made  independent  of  all  external 
accidents  of  fate ;  the  moral  belief  in  God  is  removed 
beyond  reach  of  all  the  complexities  of  outer  experi- 
ence by  being  anchored  safe  in  the  individual  con- 
science. 

By  this  deep  thought,  the  heart  of  the  book,  the 
Jewish  teacher  puts  himself  on  the  same  ground 
with  Plato.  He,  too,  visualized  the  absolute  value 
of  moral  goodness  in  his  picture  of  the  upright 
sufferer,  who  rests  certain  of  his  inner  happiness 
despite  persecution  and  misinterpretation,  and  trust- 
fully believes  that  God  cannot  desert  the  righteous. 

64 


Preparation  of  Christianity  in  Judaism 

On  this  high  plane  of  a  world-conquering  certainty 
of  faith  stands  the  author  of  the  seventy-third 
Psalm,  who  takes  refuge  in  God  from  the  darkness 
of  the  world-order :  "  Nevertheless,  I  am  continually 
with  thee ;  Thou  hast  holden  my  right  hand.  Thou 
shalt  guide  me  with  thy  counsel,  and  afterward 
receive  me  to  glory.  Whom  have  I  in  Heaven  but 
thee?  And  there  is  none  upon  earth  that  I  desire 
beside  thee.  My  flesh  and  my  heart  faileth:  but 
God  is  the  strength  of  my  heart  and  my  portion 
forever." 

Wherever  it  appears,  in  Palestine,  in  Greece  or  any- 
where else,  such  an  attitude  commands  recognition 
as  Christianity  before  Christ.  However,  these  are 
isolated  peaks,  high  above  the  average  of  the  popular 
religion.  The  Jews,  generally,  maintained  the 
standpoint  of  Job's  friends,  whose  doctrine  of 
retribution  is  one  at  bottom  with  crude  religious 
utilitarianism.  The  inevitable  conflict  between  this 
belief  and  the  facts  of  experience  drove  many,  like 
the  author  of  the  "  Wisdom  of  Solomon,"  to  doubt 
and  unbelief,  and  their  final  word  is  "  All  is  vanity." 
This  skeptical  mode  of  thinking  was  widespread 
among  the  upper  classes  of  the  Jewish  people  at  the 
beginning  of  the  second  century  B.  C,  it  had  been 
favored  by  their  acquaintance  with  Greek  culture, 
which  under  such  circumstances  acted  as  a  disinte- 
grating power,  undermining  the  faith  and  the  cus- 
toms of  the  fathers.  Things  came  to  such  a  pass 
that    the    worldy-minded,    priestly    aristocracy    at 

65 


Christian  Origins 

Jerusalem  (the  Sadducees)  offered  to  aid  King 
Antiochus  in  the  Hellenization  of  Judaism.  But  the 
forcible  attempt  to  carry  out  this  plan  resulted  in 
a  reaction  of  the  national  and  religious  spirit  of  the 
people;  the  Maccabeans  who  shook  off  the  yoke  of 
foreign  authority  and  the  Asideans  (the  predeces- 
sors of  the  Pharisees)  made  common  cause  for 
the  maintenance  of  the  Jewish  Law.  The  vic- 
torious reaction  against  the  deserters  led  to  a 
strengthening  and  stiffening  of  the  legal  spirit  of 
Judaism.  As  a  protection  against  heathenism, 
accurate  observance  of  the  Law  in  all  its  ceremonial 
externals  was  insisted  upon.  The  letter  of  the 
written  law  ("  Thora  ")  was  not  all,  but  the  net  work 
of  regulations  was  continually  enlarged;  the  circle 
of  things  permitted  was  gradually  made  smaller 
by  things  commanded;  and  the  greatest  stress  was 
laid  upon  the  elaborations  added  by  the  scribes, 
and  their  interpretations  of  the  letter,  which  were 
called  old  traditions.  Particularly  the  commands 
concerning  Sabbath  observances,  cleansings  and 
purifications  were  developed  most  minutely  and  strict 
conformity  was  commanded.  Moral  actions  were 
subordinated,  while  deeds  of  holiness  ( fasts,  prayers 
and  almsgiving)  were  regarded  as  most  im- 
portant. In  the  Pharisaic  sense,  the  ideal  of  right- 
eousness was  no  longer  the  attitude  of  the  Psalms 
nor  the  moral  guidance  of  the  Proverbs,  but  legal 
correctness  according  to  the  rules  of  scribes; 
everything  depended  on  formal  exactness  of  omis- 

66 


Preparation  of  Christianity  in  Judaism 

sion  and  commission, — Judaism  became  a  religion  of 
service  by  deeds  and  a  set  of  legal  axioms  ecclesias- 
tic and  civil.  The  claims  of  reward  and  the  reckon- 
ing with  God  took  on  a  new  aspect.  The  attitude 
of  the  soul  was  not  of  weight,  but  individual  deeds 
were  counted ;  according  to  Pharisaic  theology,  the 
meritorious  deeds  were  set  over  against  the  trans- 
gressions, and  the  balance  sheet  drawn  in  heaven 
showed  at  every  moment  how  the  spiritual  account 
stood.  Since,  by  their  extraordinary,  meritorious 
services  (to  which  martyrdom  especially  belonged), 
certain  holy  men  heaped  up  a  superabundant  treas- 
ure of  credits,  the  excess  might  be  transferred  to 
the  needy  sinner  for  the  mitigation  of  his  indebted- 
ness and  make  up  for  his  lack  of  meritorious  acts: 
thus  we  find  in  this  Jewish  theology  the  doctrine 
of  the  abundance  of  grace  and  the  atoning  merit 
and  expiation  through  saints. 

Accurate  performance  of  all  the  ordinances  and 
commands  of  the  written  and  unwritten  law  re- 
quired more  than  the  ability  of  the  average  man; 
simply  to  know  them  all,  a  special  training  was 
needed.  In  the  circle  of  the  Pharisee  the  thought 
ran :  "  The  unlearned  cannot  preserve  himself  from 
sin  and  the  layman  cannot  really  be  pious ;"  religion 
was  their  study  and  their  art,  hence  they  looked 
down  with  pride  upon  the  mass  of  poor  and  un- 
learned men,  who  neither  knew  the  minute  rules  of 
law,  nor  had  the  means  or  the  leisure  to  obey  them. 
A  strong  line  was  thus  drawn  between  the  tech- 

67 


Christian  Origins 

nically  trained  virtuosos  of  piety  and  the  unlearned 
mass  ("am-haarez  "),  who  learned  no  religion  in 
school,  who  were  avoided  by  these  proud  and  right- 
eous for  fear  of  contaminating  contact,  and  who 
were  left  to  shift  for  themselves  in  things  spiritual 
and  temporal.  The  Law,  at  one  time  the  joy  and  the 
glory  of  the  pious,  became  an  oppressive  yoke  and 
life-destroying  letter,  benumbing  Jewish  life.  Phar- 
isaism not  only  spoiled  morality  by  subordinating 
service  to  one's  neighbor,  to  the  practice  of  piety,  but 
it  took  the  soul  out  of  religion  by  barring  the  ap- 
proach to  God  through  an  idolatry  of  the  Law, 
which  elevated  it  even  above  God.  The  Rabbis 
opined  that  God  himself  devotes  his  leisure  hours 
on  Sabbath  to  the  study  of  the  Thora ! 

However  much  the  scribes  clung  to  the  traditional 
limitations  of  Judaism,  they  were  unable  to  suppress 
every  movement.  While  the  dike  of  the  Law  and 
tradition  was  being  built  higher  and  higher  to  guard 
against  the  rationalism  of  Hellenic  culture,  the  flood 
gates  were  opened  to  the  turbid  w-aters  of  Oriental 
wisdom.  Speculations  concerning  the  realm  of  the 
spirits,  concerning  angels  and  demons,  concern- 
ing resurrection,  last  judgment  and  places  of  retribu- 
tion in  the  world  to  come  poured  in.  Attributes  of 
God,  such  as  wisdom,  word,  spirit  and  glory,  which 
before  had  been  personified  occasionally  in  poetic 
language,  were  now  made  independent,  personal 
beings,  like  the  Amschaspans  or  archangels,  mediat- 
ing between  God  and  the  world.    The  old  notion  of 

68 


Preparation  of  Christianity  in  Judaism 

divine  messengers  (angels)  was  dogmatically  de- 
veloped :  various  classes  were  differentiated,  the 
highest  were  named  and  commissioned  to  do  speci- 
fied work  in  governing  the  world.  Protecting 
angels  were  apportioned  to  peoples  and  persons; 
natural  phenomena  even  were  made  subject  to 
angels,  restoring  the  heathen  nature-gods  under  new 
labels.  As  in  the  Persian  religion,  the  army  of  the 
good  spirits  was  opposed  by  an  army  of  evil  ones; 
so  in  Judaism,  the  demons,  which  had  formerly  been 
unimportant  shadowy  beings,  achieved  the  new  dis- 
tinction of  fallen  angels ;  under  their  greatest  leader, 
Satan,  they  formed  a  kingdom  inimical  to  God. 
But  now  Satan  became  the  opponent  of  God,  the 
prince  of  all  the  realms  in  open  enmity  to  the  king- 
dom of  God.  In  the  book  of  Job,  Satan  was  reck- 
oned among  the  heavenly  host  of  God,  and  heavenly 
attorney  or  accuser  of  men  before  God.  Now,  it 
was  Satan  who  tempted  our  first  parents,  and 
through  him  sin  and  death  found  entrance  into  God's 
good  creation ;  sickness  was  recognized  as  the  work- 
ing of  demons  who  had  taken  possession  of  men; 
opposing  heathen  nations  were  looked  upon  as  tools 
of  Satan,  who  was  employing  them  to  persecute 
God's  kingdom  of  the  Jews.  Both  Jew  and  Persian 
nourished  the  hope  that  Satan's  rule  in  the  present 
world-period  has  its  limit  fixed  in  God's  council. 
According  to  the  Persian  religion,  the  war  between 
the  good  and  the  bad  God  is  the  content  of  the 
world's  history,  which  falls  into  four  periods  of 

69 


Christian  Origins 

three  thousand  years  each;  at  the  end  of  that  time 
the  world  will  be  judged,  the  realm  of  inimical 
spirits  destroyed,  the  Savior  will  appear  and  cause 
the  resurrection  of  men  and  the  creation  of  a  new 
world  purified  of  all  evil.  These  thoughts  now 
forced  their  way  into  Judaism  and  became  dominant 
in  those  new  pictures  of  the  future  collectively  called 
"  apocalypses." 

The  first  work  belonging  to  this  category  is  the 
Book  of  Daniel,  which  contains  a  philosophy  of  his- 
(jry  from  the  Jewish  theocratic  standpoint  in  the 
form  of  a  vision  put  into  the  mouth  of  a  mythical 
saint  of  the  time  of  Nebukadnezzar.  Following 
Jeremiah's  prophecy  of  seventy  years  of  trial,  the 
author  of  Daniel  recasts  it  into  seventy  year-weeks 
and  fixes  the  turning  point  of  the  salvation  that  is  to 
be  in  his  own  period,  the  time  of  the  Maccabean 
wars.  In  the  fall  of  the  Macedonian  monarchy  he 
espies  the  coming  end  of  the  last  of  the  four  heathen 
world  empires,  after  which  there  will  begin  the 
eternal  rule  of  the  "  saints '  (that  is,  the  Jews)  and 
the  world's  history  will  come  to  a  close.  Thus 
the  prophetic  expectation  of  a  future  "  messianic  " 
period  of  glory  for  the  Jewish  people,  which  had 
been  lost  to  sight  during  the  Hellenic  rule,  was  once 
more  moved  into  the  foreground,  at  the  same  time 
achieving  an  important  and  decided  shift  toward  the 
supernatural,  the  post-mundane  and  the  miraculous. 

The  natural  opposition  of  the  Jews  to  the  other 
peoples  becomes  the  absolute  opposition  of  the  king- 

70 


Preparation  of  Christianity  in  Judaism 

dom  of  God  whose  origin  is  in  heaven  and  the  de- 
monic realms  whose  origin  is  in  the  depths.  No 
longer  the  natural  succession  of  the  political  events 
guided  by  God  brings  about  the  decision,  but  a  sud- 
den and  miraculous  catastrophe  annihilates  the  op- 
position to  God  and  brings  about  the  dominion  of 
the  kingdom  of  the  saints,  symbolized  by  a  human 
figure  which  appears  before  God  on  a  heavenly 
cloud.  Based  on  the  pessimistic  view  of  the  times, 
and  resting  on  the  background  of  Persian  dualism, 
this  expectation  of  the  sudden  coming  of  God*s  do- 
minion through  the  agency  of  a  miraculous  catas- 
trophe which  would  end  present  world  conditions 
and  initiate  a  new  one,  dominated  the  mood  and 
thought  of  Judaism  in  the  last  century  before  Christ. 
In  harmony  with  this  supernatural  origin  of 
the  kingdom  of  God,  they  thought  of  its  constitu- 
tion :  though  it  was  to  be  realized  on  earth,  yet  the 
pious  of  old  were  to  be  sharers  in  its  happiness  and 
would  be  resurrected  for  that  purpose;  while  the 
godless  would  rise  to  horror  eternal.  Probably  Per- 
sian influence  caused  the  popularity  of  this  hope  of 
).  resurrection,  expressed  for  the  first  time  in  the  Book 
^  of  Daniel.  In  the  later  apocalypses,  such  as  Henoch, 
there  was  added  the  notion  of  places  of  retribution 
in  the  world  to  come — Gehenna  or  Hell  for  the  souls 
of  the  godless,  and  Paradise  for  the  pious.  This 
idea  of  the  immortaHty  of  disembodied  souls  in  the 
future  world  was  entirely  strange  to  the  old  Israel- 
itish  religion;   alongside  the  belief  in  resurrection, 

71 


Christian  Origins 

it  had  long  been  current  in  the  Persian  reHgion,  and 
formed  the  meeting-point  of  Platonic,  Alexandrian 
and  New-Pythagorean  philosophy,  as  well  as  the 
various  mystery-sects.  The  hope  of  a  blissful  fate 
for  the  pious  in  the  world  to  come  was  the  consola- 
tion of  the  world-weary  souls  of  that  age.  Small 
wonder  that  the  growing  desperation  of  the  nation 
caused  the  Jews  to  take  up  this  belief  in  individual 
immortality,  without,  however,  giving  up  the  old 
prophetic  hope  of  a  future  period  of  earthly  salvation 
for  the  entire  Jewish  nation. 

These  two  thought-series,  the  spiritualistic  belief 
in  immortality  and  the  national  hope  of  a  Messiah  on 
earth,  existed  side  by  side  unrelated ;  or  an  attempt 
was  made  to  arrange  a  compromise  between  them, 
so  that  the  brief  earthly  messianic  period  of  salvation 
(the  so-called  "millennial  kingdom")  should  pre- 
cede the  eternity  of  perfect  conditions  destined  to 
follow. 

This  double  picture  of  the  future  corresponded  to 
the  variation  in  the  idea  of  the  person  of  the  "  Mes- 
siah." According  to  the  apocalypse  of  Henoch,  the 
Messiah  is  a  supermundane,  semi-divine  person,  the 
mysterious  "  son  of  man,"  who  was  hidden  with  God 
before  creation  and  will  descend  from  above  at  a 
specified  time  in  order  to  judge  the  world  and  save 
the  Jewish  nation.  In  the  "  Psalms  of  Solomon," 
which  originated  in  Pharisaic  circles  about  the  mid- 
dle of  the  last  century  before  Christ,  the  Messiah  is 
described  in  the  manner  of  the  ancient  prophetic 

72 


Preparation  of  Christianity  in  Judaism 

ideal — a  man  of  the  earth,  of  the  seed  of  David,  who 
will  conquer  his  enemies  with  divine  help  and  will 
rule  the  Jewish  people  with  a  mighty  and  righteous 
government. 

How  far  these  differing  apocalyptic  ideas  had 
taken  hold  in  the  popular  religion  of  the  time  of 
Jesus,  it  is  difficult  to  say  with  certainty.  We  must 
not  forget  that  Judaism  did  not  have  a  dogmatic 
doctrinal  law,  as  did  the  Christian  Church  later, — a 
law  which  all  were  in  duty  bound  to  believe.  The 
Law  regulated  only  what  was  to  be  done  and  what 
was  forbidden,  while  the  belief  in  one  God  and  His 
Revelation  was  naturally  presupposed;  as  to  the 
rest,  each  had  greatest  liberty  of  belief  and  of  hopes. 
Had  not  that  been  the  case  how  could  the  Sadducees, 
the  priestly  aristocracy  at  the  head  of  the  religious 
life  of  the  community,  have  rejected  all  apocalyptic 
ideas  of  angels,  resurrection  and  world-to-come,  con- 
fining themselves  to  the  written  Law.  The  Phari- 
sees, supported  by  the  laity,  were  the  bearers  of  the 
national  messianic  hope  and  the  new  apocalyptic 
ideas,  the  belief  in  angels,  resurrection,  judgment 
and  retribution  in  the  world  to  come;  national- 
messianic  fanaticism  involved  them  in  the  political 
affairs  of  the  world  and  made  them  the  democratic 
rivals  of  the  aristocratic  Sadducees. 

In  contradistinction  to  both  parties,  the  Essenes 
were  a  purely  religious  brotherhood,  caring  not  at 
all  about  politics,  and  leading  the  quiet  life  of  work 
and    ascetic    self-training    of    monastic    seclusion. 

73 


Christian  Origins 

Strict  as  they  were  in  the  performance  of  Sabbath 
regulations  and  rites  of  purification  (outdoing  the 
Pharisees  therein),  yet  they  differed  from  the  rest 
of  the  Jews  by  pecuHar  traits.  They  rejected  bloody 
sacrifices  because  they  regarded  their  daily  baths  in 
cold  water  and  their  common  meal,  with  its  prayer 
of  sanctification,  as  a  purer  worship  of  Gk)d.  They 
rejected  slavery  as  a  form  of  unrighteousness,  con- 
trary to  nature.  The  majority  of  them  scorned 
marriage,  because  the  charm  of  a  wife  and  the  care 
for  children  robbed  a  man  of  freedom  and  made  him 
selfish.  They  rejected  the  idea  of  property,  and  held 
all  things  absolutely  in  common ;  upon  his  initiation 
into  the  brotherhood,  each  one  placed  all  his  pos- 
sessions in  the  common  treasury  of  the  Order,  and 
the  wages  of  the  members  went  into  the  general 
fund.  These  moneys  were  used  to  pay  for  the  neces- 
saries of  life  for  the  members  of  the  Order  and  for 
the  performance  of  deeds  of  charity. 

The  Essene  brotherhood  had  a  hierarchical  organ- 
ization and  strict  discipline;  grades  of  holiness  di- 
vided them  into  four  ranks,  and  all  the  members 
were  pledged  to  strict  obedience  to  superiors.  A 
novitiate  of  three  years  preceded  admission  into  the 
Order;  misdemeanors  and  expulsion  were  passed 
upon  by  a  court  of  at  least  one  hundred  members. 
Frankness  and  truthfulness  of  the  brethren  to  one 
another  and  secrecy  in  regard  to  traditions  and  sa- 
cred writings  were  strictly  commanded  by  law.  The 
brothers  lived  a  simple  life,  strictly  regulated ;  each 

74 


Preparation  of  Christianity  in  Judaism 

one  had  to  do  his  own  kind  of  work  during  the  week, 
looking  after  the  fields,  the  garden,  the  cattle  or 
working  at  some  manual  labor  to  satisfy  the  simplest 
needs  of  life;  trade  was  prohibited  as  well  as  any 
service  abetting  war  and  luxury.  Those  who  had 
the  ability  to  act  as  soothsayers  and  wonderhealers 
were  permitted  to  go  to  the  people  who  desired  their 
help  or  their  counsel;  the  medical  and  prophetic 
powers  of  the  Essenes  are  often  praised.  On  Sab- 
bath, the  brothers  assembled,  and  for  the  edification 
of  all,  the  sacred  writings  (secret  writings  of  the 
Order,  apocryphal  and  apocalyptic  in  nature,  as  well 
as  the  Old  Testament)  were  read  and  interpreted  by 
\  those  best  versed  in  such  matters.  Philo  says  the 
object  of  their  instructions  was  to  educate  to  piety, 
purity,  righteousness  and  knowledge  of  duties,  along 
three  lines — love  of  God,  of  virtue,  and  of  man. 
The  love  of  God  demanded  the  purity  of  the  whole 
of  life,  including  the  physical ;  also  freedom  from  all 
deception.  The  Essenes  considered  an  oath  as  bad' 
as  perjury  or  falsehood.  The  love  of  God  ddmanded 
especially  the  belief  in  the  beneficent  providence  of 
God  as  the  cause  of  all  good  and  nothing  evil.  Love 
of  virtue  was  to  be  made  manifest  by  self-control, 
moderation,  freedom  from  greed  and  ambition  for 
glory;  love  of  men  by  benevolence,  decency,  sym- 
pathy, readiness  to  aid  the  sick  and  incapacitated, 
and  reverence  of  the  aged.  The  Essenes  not  only 
lived  for  these  moral  principles,  but  many  died  for 
the  faith  in  the  Jewish  wars.    This  power  of  world- 

75 


Christian  Origins 

abnegation  came  from  their  beUef  in  the  immortahty 
of  the  soul,  which  had  descended  from  above  and 
striven  for  freedom  from  the  bodily  fetters,  and 
from  the  belief  in  future  retribution,  when  the  good 
will  walk  in  the  fields  of  the  blessed  beyond  the 
ocean,  and  the  wicked  will  go  down  into  the  dark 
depths  of  Hades. 

The  similarity  of  this  doctrine  with  the  New- 
Pythagorean  and  Orphic  teaching  of  the  soul  and  the 
future  world  would  suffice  to  show  the  close  histor- 
ical connection  between  the  Essenes  and  these  Hel- 
lenistic sects;  but  the  other  Essene  peculiarities 
mentioned  point  to  the  same  fact.  Whether  this 
Hellenistic  influence  (noticeable  in  the  Jewish- 
Alexandrian  brotherhood  of  Therapeutes  also)  was 
accompanied  by  other  Oriental  influences — Persian, 
Syrian,  or  even  Buddhistic — that  is  a  question 
which  may  be  passed  over  the  more  readily,  in- 
asmuch as  New-Pythagoreanism  itself  probably 
depends  upon  Oriental  Gnosticism. 

So  close  a  connection  between  Essenism  and 
Christianity  was  not  seldom  accepted  in  former  days 
that  Jesus  himself  was  looked  upon  as  an  Essene. 
Certainly,  that  view  was  erroneous,  and  it  is  gener- 
ally conceded  to-day  that  it  was  an  error;  the  dis- 
tressing fear  of  the  stain  of  impurity  caused  by  fam- 
ily and  social  life,  the  misanthropical  seclusion  of 
the  monastic  order,  the  slavish  subjection  to  the  dis- 
cipline of  the  Order  which  (according  to  Josephus* 
description)    made  them  appear  like  irresponsible 

76 


Preparation  of  Christianity  in  Judaism 

youths  under  the  rod  of  the  teacher — all  of  this,  on 
the  face  of  it,  is  very  different  from  the  gospel- 
picture  of  Jesus.  On  the  other  hand,  it  would  be 
equally  one-sided  to  deny  that  Essenism  was  of  im- 
portance as  a  preparation  for  Christianity.  Not 
alone  the  rites  of  purification  were  emphasized  by 
the  Essenes ;  of  more  importance  to  them  was  the 
heart  free  from  selfishness  and  sensuality.  If  they 
were  indifferent  to  the  political  fate  of  the  nation  as 
a  whole,  they  were  intense  in  their  sympathies,  ample 
in  their  generosity  toward  the  destitute,  lonely  and 
lowly,  caring  for  the  needs  of  the  lower  classes,  the 
impoverished  and  the  ailing.  To  practice  benevo- 
lence and  to  be  pure,  these  were  the  fundamental 
commands  of  Essenism  long  before  they  became 
fundamental  commands  of  Christianity.  I  know  of 
no  instance  in  the  ancient  world,  heathen  or  Jewish, 
which  approaches  Christianity  herein  more  nearly 
than  Essenism. 

When  we  recall  that  the  Essenes  had  settlements 
and  monasteries  in  every  town  and  village,  that  the; 
narrow  circle  of  the  Order  was  widened  by  the 
greater  circle  of  the  married  lay  brothers  associated 
with  them,  that  they  devoted  themselves  to  the  edu- 
cation of  other  peoples'  children,  that  in  their  capac- 
ity as  soothsayers  and  physicians  they  came  in  con- 
tact with  all  conditions  and  classes  of  people, — then 
we  will  conceive  readily  that  the  Essene  spirit  was 
influential  far  beyond  the  narrow  limits  of  the  Order 
itself.    We  will  find  it  more  than  likely  that  retiring 

77 


Christian  Origins 

men,  who  were  repelled  by  the  officious  and  shallow 
Pharisaic  commerce  with  piety,  would  have  a  sym- 
pathetic understanding  of  the  more  serious  and  soul- 
ful piety  of  the  Essenes,  and  that  for  such  men  the 
thought  was  not  remote,  the  preparation  for  the 
coming  of  God's  dominion,  the  salvation  of  His 
people  lies  in  an  inner  conversion  and  in  a  purifica- 
tion of  hearts. 

Such  a  man,  related  to  Essenisiu  and  yet  not  be- 
longing to  that  Order,  was  John  the  Baptist;  as  a 
preacher  of  repentance  he  appeared  in  the  wilderness 
of  Juda,  in  which  most  of  the  Essene  settlements 
were  located.  He  was  not  a  forerunner  in  the  sense 
that  he  recognized  Jesus  as  the  Messiah,  and  pointed 
to  him  as  his  greater  successor;  this  was  the  later 
interpretation  which  the  Christian  congregation  ap- 
plied to  the  relation  between  them.  But  John  was 
a  forerunner  of  Jesus  in  the  sense  that  his  was  the 
first  announcement  to  the  masses  of  the  near  ap- 
proach of  the  kingdom  of  heaven  as  a  call  to  re- 
pentance; thus  he  created  that  strong  movement 
which  prepared  the  soil  for  the  life-work  of  Jesus. 
With  the  old  Prophets,  John  the  Baptist  was  con- 
vinced that  the  decisive  "  day  of  the  Lord  "  would 
bring  salvation  only  to  those  who  prepared  them- 
selves in  worthy  fashion  by  an  honest  change  of 
spirit ;  for  the  others,  though  their  trust  in  the  kin- 
ship with  Abraham  be  ever  so  great,  it  would  be  a 
day  of  judgment  and  of  terror.  Baptism,  or  the 
immersion  in  flowing  water,  was  to  be  the  sign  of 

7« 


Preparation  of  Christianity  in  Judaism 

the  repentant,  and  at  the  same  time  the  mystical 
medium  of  cleansing  from  sin  and  guilt,  a  means 
toward  the  forgiveness  of  sin.  As  daily  baths  were 
considered  by  the  Essenes  the  symbol  and  means  of 
religious  purification  and  holiness  for  the  members 
of  the  Order,  so  the  baptism  of  John  was  to  be  ef- 
fective for  all  who  sought  salvation ;  by  baptism  all 
would  be  sanctified  into  one  holy  congregation  of  the 
people  worthy  of  God's  kingdom.  The  Essene  ideal 
of  personal  purity  of  heart  and  of  life  was  ekvated 
by  John ;  he  made  it  the  duty  of  all.  According  to 
the  fulfillment  of  that  duty  the  approaching  catas- 
trophe of  the  kingdom  of  God  would  bring  salvation 
or  misery  to  each  individual.  The  idea  of  the  mes- 
sianic nation  was  the  background  and  driving  power 
of  this  popular  religious  movement ;  that  it  was  the 
true  cause  of  the  imprisonment  and  execution  of  the 
Baptist  may  be  gleaned  from  the  reference  of  Jo- 
sephus,  which  is  certainly  historical. 


79 


JESUS 


JESUS 

One  of  the  host  which  came  to  John  to  be  bap- 
tized by  him  was  Jesus  of  Nazareth,  the  son  of 
Joseph,  the  carpenter,  and  Mary;  they  had  four 
other  sons  and  several  daughters.  We  have  no  his- 
torical knowledge  of  the  childhood  and  youth  of 
Jesus,  for  the  narratives  in  Matthew  and  Luke  are 
religious  legends  of  no  historical  value;  we  will 
explain  their  origin  in  a  later  connection.  In  Mark 
the  oldest  Gospel,  Jesus  appears  for  the  first  time  at 
the  baptism  by  John.  Therewith,  the  Gospels  asso- 
ciate the  miraculous  event  of  the  messianic  sanctifica- 
tion  of  Jesus  by  a  celestial  voice  and  the  descent  of 
the  spirit  in  the  shape  of  a  dove;  since  this,  too,  is 
self -evidently  not  history  but  legend — later  we  will 
recognize  it  as  one  of  the  first  steps  in  the  develop- 
ment of  the  Christ-speculations  of  the  Christian 
congregation — the  question  has  been  raised  whether 
there  is  any  historical  remainder  to  the  story  of  the 
baptism,  after  the  miraculous  part  has  been  sub- 
tracted? Though  there  is  no  certain  knowledge 
possible,  yet  it  may  be  considered  probable  that 
Jesus  was  baptized  by  John;  if  that  had  not  been 
a  settled  fact  in  the  memory  of  the  congregation, 
they  would  scarcely  have  told  the  story  that  John 
baptized  Jesus  and  thereby  make  it  apppear  that  the 

83 


Christian  Origins 

latter  was  subordinate  to  the  Baptist;  the  evident 
attempt  of  the  EvangeHsts  to  weaken  this  natural 
suspicion  speaks  for  the  correctness  of  the  tradition 
of  the  baptism  of  Jesus  by  John. 

From  the  fact  that,  after  the  imprisonment  of  the 
Baptist,  Jesus  appears  with  the  same  cry :  "  Repent 
ye,  for  the  kingdom  of  heaven  (that  is  God)  is  at 
hand,"  we  conclude  that  John's  preaching  concern- 
ing the  immediate  dawn  of  the  dominion  of  God 
and  the  great  judgment  day  made  a  deep  and  last- 
ing impression  on  Jesus.  It  sounds  as  though  he 
simply  meant  to  continue  the  Baptist's  work.  Yet 
it  was  another  spirit  which  spoke  through  him,  a 
new  power  it  was,  that  vitalized  his  activity.  John 
had  been  a  preacher  of  repentance  who  wished  to 
terrify  and  humble  the  sinful  masses  and  their  over- 
weening leaders  in  Judaea ;  his  stern  ascetic  appear- 
ance and  the  habitation  in  the  wilderness  har- 
monized with  his  task.  But  an  ascetic  is  no  enthu- 
siast, and  a  penitential  sermon  does  not  beget  inspira- 
tion; hence,  it  is  easy  to  see  why  there  are  no 
stories  of  miraculous  deeds  performed  by  John,  and 
why  his  personality  did  not  become  the  centre  of 
any  miraculous  legends  such  as  usually  express  the 
enthusiastic  admiration  whenever  a  powerful  per- 
sonality wins  the  hearts  and  inflames  the  imagina- 
tion of  the  masses. 

Jesus  was  such  a  personality.  He  inspired  others 
because  he  himself  was  inspired  by  a  faith,  more 
elevating  than  humiliating,  bringing  bliss  more  than 

84 


Jesus 

terror.  He  won  the  hearts  of  many,  because  he 
brought  them  a  great  heart,  rich  in  love  and  in 
mercy.  His  sermon  was  not  the  old,  dry-as-dust 
wisdom  of  the  scribes,  not  the  elaboration  of  lean, 
intricate  questions  of  Law,  nor  was  it  the  threaten- 
ing or  damning  sermon  of  judgment.  It  was  the 
immediate  expression  of  his  own  heart,  firm  in 
faith  and  warm  with  love,  and  therefore  his  words 
became  the  joyous  message  of  salvation  for  all  the 
enslaved  and  oppressed,  the  weary  and  the  heavy- 
laden.  Whoever  heard  and  saw  him,  got  the 
impression  that  something  new  had  appeared,  a 
teacher  different  from  the  law-learned,  a  teacher  by 
the  grace  of  God,  in  whom  a  higher  power  was  at 
work, — a  divine  spirit  so  the  faithful  felt ;  a  demonic 
spirit,  blasphemed  their  opponents — in  any  event,  a 
power  wonderful  in  capturing  hearts,  banishing 
demons  and  healing  diseased  bodies. 

The  mystery  of  such  personality  can  never  be 
revealed  entirely;  in  this  case  no  more  than  in  that 
of  any  other  hero  of  human  kind;  but  in  some 
measure  it  may  be  possible  to  attempt  to  explain 
their  peculiarity  by  the  conditions  of  the  time  and 
the  environment.  The  teachings  of  the  Baptist  had 
weakened  the  conviction  in  Jesus  that  the  great, 
long-prophesied  day  of  the  Lord  was  at  hand;  the 
Baptist  had  announced  to  the  Judaeans  who  were 
harping  on  the  kinship  of  Abraham  and  to  their 
self-lauding,  hypocritical  guardians  of  Zion  that 
it  would  be  pre-eminently  a  day  of  judgment;  such 

85 


Christian  Origins 

teachings  were  pertinent  in  Judaea  and  conceivable 
in  the  mouth  of  John,  the  priest's  son,  who  had  been 
a  constant  eyewitness  to  the  hierarchical  confusion. 
But  Jesus  was  a  child  of  the  people  and  had  been 
born  in  Galilee  where  the  population  was  freer  from 
Jewish  national  pride  and  Pharisaical  deification  of 
the  Law  than  in  Judaea,  and  where  men  felt  more 
inconsolable  over  the  distress  of  the  times: — the 
tyranny  of  the  Idumaean  princes  nominated  and 
supported  by  the  Romans,  the  fearful  pressure  of 
taxes,  the  wilfulness  of  the  aristocracy,  the  poor 
man's  lack  of  rights,  the  economical  disintegration 
and  the  religious  disorder  of  the  masses.  Such 
was  the  state  of  social  distress  at  home  that  met 
Jesus'  eye  on  his  return  to  Galilee  from  the  wilder- 
ness of  Judaea,  and  on  his  lips  were  sermons  of  the 
approaching  kingdom  of  God.  How  could  he  bear 
to  use  the  threatening  language  of  the  judgment 
sermon  toward  these  poorest  of  men?  The  Gospel 
of  Matthew  tells  (9,  36)  :  "  But  when  he  saw  the 
multitudes  he  was  moved  with  compassion  for  them, 
because  they  were  distressed  and  scattered  as  sheep 
not  having  a  shepherd."  With  the  eye  of  compas- 
sionate love,  he  saw  in  this  maltreated  and  leader- 
less  mass  the  glowing  spark  of  pious  hope  and  the 
longing  for  salvation,  consolation,  help  and  guid- 
ance. In  his  soul,  he  felt  the  words  of  the  old 
Prophet:  "Comfort  ye,  comfort  ye,  my  people!" 
He  felt  that  the  prophetic  spirit  had  taken  hold  of 
him  and  that   the  Lord   had  anointed   him    "  to 

86 


Jesus 

preach  good  tidings  unto  the  poor,"  and  sent  him 
"  to  bind  up  the  broken-hearted,  to  proclaim  Hberty 
to  the  captives  and  the  opening  of  the  prison  to 
them  that  are  bound;  to  proclaim  the  acceptable 
year  of  the  Lord."  (Isaiah  40,  i ;  61,  i.  Cp.  Luke 
4,  17  seq.)  In  his  sympathizing  heart,  the  distress 
of  the  people  became  a  call  of  God,  a  certain  proof 
of  his  mission  to  preach  good  tidings  to  the  poor. 
This  mission  called  for  a  new  method  of  work; 
he  could  not  separate  himself  proudly  like  the 
Pharisee  from  the  unclean  and  sinful  populace;  nor 
could  he  retire  into  the  wilderness  as  John  did, 
waiting  for  the  people  to  come  to  him.  No,  he 
sought  men  everywhere.  He  looked  for  them  in 
the  schools  on  Sabbath  and  at  their  work  on  the 
week  days ;  he  entered  the  houses  of  those  who 
admitted  him;  he  sat  by  the  bedside  of  the  sick 
desirous  of  his  help  and  sat  at  the  same  hospitable 
table  with  notorious  publicans.  This  love  which 
approached  its  object,  seeking  the  lost  and  saving 
them,  was  something  new;  not  among  the  haughty 
models  of  piety,  the  Pharisees,  nor  among  the 
shrinking  ascetics  of  the  Essene  Order  could  this 
love  be  found,  nor  had  John  the  bitter  preacher  of 
repentance  possessed  it.  It  was  a  revival  of  the  best 
spirit  of  the  Prophets  Hosea,  Jeremiah  and  the 
second  Isaiah;  yet,  differing  from  their  spirit, 
because  another  period  furnished  the  background, 
a  period  of  feverish  tension  in  which  the  despair 
of  the  old  and  the  expectation  of  an  all-subversive 

87 


Christian  Origins 

catastrophe  had  reached  its  climax  and  shaken  the 
people  to  their  depths.  The  glowing  hope  of  the 
early  appearance  of  God's  miraculous  deeds  of  sal- 
vation was  allied  in  Jesus'  soul  with  the  merciful 
love  of  the  lowly,  the  miserable  and  the  sinful,  and 
thereupon  rested  the  charm  of  his  personality,  the 
enthusiastic  and  the  heroic  as  well  as  the  delicate 
and  the  mild  elements  of  his  appearance  and  ac- 
tivity, his  irresistible  power  over  the  masses  as  well 
as  his  power  to  attract  and  hold  individual  souls; 
thereupon,  too,  the  collision  with  the  ruling  powers 
of  his  nation  and  the  world :  in  short,  thereupon 
rested  the  success  of  his  life — and  its  tragedy. 

That  cry  with  which  Jesus'  sermon  begins  accord- 
ing to  the  Evangelist:  "  Repent  ye;  for  the  king- 
dom of  heaven  is  at  hand,"  that  cry  is  at  the  same 
time  the  essence  of  all  his  teaching.  The  prophetic 
proclamation  of  the  nearness  of  God's  kingdom  is 
the  dominant  note  from  beginning  to  end,  the 
motive  of  the  demand  for  moral  transformation. 
What  did  Jesus  mean  by  God's  kingdom,  the 
"  kingdom  of  heaven"?  The  customary  opinion  is 
that  he  understood  it  to  be  something  entirely  new 
and  different  from  what  his  countrymen  thought, 
whether  their  idea  was  a  kingdom  in  heaven  above, 
a  future  bliss  of  souls,  or  even  a  spiritual  constitu- 
tion of  men,  their  true  piety  and  righteousness. 
But  if  Jesus  had  actually  united  such  a  new  thought 
W'ith  the  old  term,  would  we  not  be  justified  in  ex- 
pecting him  to  express  himself  clearly  and  decidedly 

98 


Jesus 

concerning  it  from  the  beginning,  that  he  would  ex- 
plain his  meaning  accurately  and  prevent  misunder- 
standing? But  we  find  no  such  report;  as  the  Baptist 
before  him  had  done,  he  took  it  for  granted  that 
every  man  knew  what  he  meant  by  the  kingdom 
whose  near  approach  he  offered  as  a  prospect.  Did 
he  not  mean,  then,  just  what  was  meant  by  all  the 
Jews  of  his  period,  namely,  that  wonderful  exertion 
of  God's  ruling  power*  hoped  for  by  all  the  pious 
since  Daniel,  whereby  present  miserable  conditions 
would  be  swept  away  and  yield  to  a  new  and  better 
order  of  things  on  earth,  especially  in  the  Jewish 
nation  ? 

In  fact  this  suspicion  is  confirmed  by  an  unbiassed 
consideration  of  Jesus'  expressions  on  the  subject. 
Above  all,  the  beatitudes  in  their  original  form  as 
handed  down  in  Luke  (6,  20  seq.)  must  be  con- 
sidered :  "  Blessed  are  ye  poor,  for  yours  is  the 
kingdom  of  God.  Blessed  are  ye  that  hunger  now ; 
for  ye  shall  be  filled.  Blessed  are  ye  that  weep 
now,  for  ye  shall  laugh.  But  woe  unto  you  that 
are  rich!  for  ye  have  received  your  consolation. 
Woe  unto  you,  ye  that  are  full  now!  for  ye  shall 
hunger.  Woe  unto  you,  ye  that  laugh  now !  for  ye 
shall  mourn  and  weep."  It  is  clearly  declared  here 
that  the  approaching  kingdom  of  God  means  a  new 
arrangement  of  social  conditions  favorable  to  the 
poor  and  unfavorable  to  the  rich ;  at  the  same  time, 

*  The  Greek  word  hasileia  means  royal  rule,  government  of  God, 
and  the  connotation  includes  the  state  of  happiness  produced  for  the 
pious  as  the  result  and  appearance  of  the  divine  dominion. 

89 


■«  R  A  iS' 


Christian  Origins 

this  presupposes  that  the  poor  are  the  pious  whose 
hope  is  in  God,  and  the  rich  are  the  godless  and  out- 
rageous worldings,  thus  using  the  words  in  the 
same  sense  as  in  Psalms. 

This  clear  meaning  of  the  original  beatitudes  in 
Luke  was  made  unclear  by  Matthew  (5,  3  seq.) 
under  the  viewpoint  of  later  historical  circum- 
stances ;  the  poor,  in  the  literal  sense,  became  "  the 
poor  in  spirit,"  and  the  physically  hungry  became 
those  "  hungering  for  righteousness,"  thus  crowd- 
ing the  original  contrast  between  the  present  and 
the  future  condition  out  of  sight  to  bring  out  the 
opposition  of  external  condition  and  internal  value; 
though  even  in  this  case  the  prophecy  that  the  meek 
shall  inherit  the  earth  betrays  clearly  enough  the 
original  sense  of  an  expected  rearrangement  of 
earthly  conditions  in  the  future.  Is  it  possible  to 
miss  that  meaning  in  Jesus'  consolatory  word  to  his 
friends :  "  Fear  not,  little  flock,  for  it  is  your 
Father's  good  pleasure  to  give  you  the  kingdom  ?  " 
(Luke  12,  32.)  The  same  prophecy  is  repeated 
more  fully  at  the  Last  Supper  thus :  "  And  I  appoint 
unto  you  a  kingdom,  even  as  my  Father  appointed 
unto  me,  that  ye  may  eat  and  drink  at  my  table  in  my 
kingdom;  and  ye  shall  sit  on  thrones,  judging  the 
twelve  tribes  of  Israel."  (Luke  22,  29;  Matthew 
19,  28.)  There,  too,  is  the  noteworthy  saying: 
"  I  will  not  drink  from  henceforth  of  the  fruit  of 
the  vine  until  the  kingdom  of  God  shall  come,"  or 
"  until  that  day  when  I  drink  it  new  in  the  kingdom 


Jesus 

of  God."  (Luke  22,  18;  Mark  14,  25.)  With 
difficulty  could  such  expressions  lead  one  to  think 
of  aught  else  but  a  new  condition  of  the  Jewish 
people  brought  about  by  divine  omnipotence  in 
favor  of  Jesus  and  his  followers,  but  the  new 
epoch  was  not  to  be  thought  of  as  so  different  from 
the  present  that  there  would  be  no  eating  and  drink- 
ing: to  read  future  heavenly  bliss  into  these  words 
would  be  violence  forbidden  by  historical  methods. 

Let  us  add  the  request  of  the  Lord's  Prayer, 
"  Thy  kingdom  come !"  and  ask,  not  what  we  mean 
by  it,  but  what  thought  did  these  words  cause  in 
the  minds  of  the  disciples  of  Jesus?  In  the  Acts 
of  the  Apostles  (i,  6)  there  is  an  undoubted  guide 
to  the  answer,  for  there  the  disciples  are  made  to 
ask  the  departing  Master :  "  Dost  thou  at  this  time 
restore  the  kingdom  to  Israel?"  The  realization 
of  the  prophesied  messianic  kingdom  in  the  Jewish 
people  was  the  pivotal  point  of  the  hopes  and  the 
questionings  of  the  earliest  Christian  congregation; 
would  that  have  been  possible,  if  Jesus  himself  had 
not  taught  something  of  that  kind  or  something 
opposed  to  it? 

The  proof  adduced  from  these  expressions  with- 
out ambiguity  cannot  be  eliminated  by  the  semblance 
of  opposition  through  other  passages  liable  to 
various  interpretations.  In  the  parables  of  the 
sower  and  the  seed,  an  attempt  has  been  made  to 
find  the  thought  that  the  kingdom  of  God  is  present 
in  the  moral  attitude  of  the  faithful  and  develops 

91 


Christian  Origins 

by  reason  of  their  own  activity;  but  they  mean 
rather  that  the  coming  of  the  kingdom  may  be  pre- 
pared by  the  preaching  of  the  Word,  but  its  actual 
appearance  cannot  be  hastened  or  brought  about  by 
any  human  action ;  it  must  be  awaited  with  patience 
until  it  comes  into  being  of  itself  according  to 
God's  will.  The  parables  of  the  treasure  in  the 
field  and  the  priceless  pearl  simply  mean  that  for 
the  superabundant  good  of  participation  in  God's 
kingdom,  one  must  be  ready  to  give  up  all  other 
good ;  but  they  do  not  tell  us  that  the  highest  good 
is  a  present  spiritual  possession;  clearly,  it  is  de- 
scribed as  the  rich  reward  to  be  hoped  for  in  some 
future  epoch,  and  the  manifold  recompense  for  pres- 
ent sacrifices.  (Matt.  19,  29.)  The  only  pas- 
sage which  seems  to  indicate  the  spiritual  presence 
of  the  kingdom  is  that  of  Luke  (17,  20  seq.)  :  "  The 
kingdom  of  God  cometh  not  with  observation : 
Neither  shall  they  say,  Lo,  here!  or  There!  for  lo, 
the  kingdom  of  God  is  within  you."  But  how  un- 
certain, aye,  impossible  is  this  traditional  interpreta- 
tion, as  soon  as  the  whole  connection  is  considered : 
could  Jesus  have  said  to  the  Pharisees,  the  kingdom 
of  God  is  within  them?  and  could  he  have  said  that 
it  will  come  without  disturbance,  when  the  descrip- 
tion immediately  following  makes  its  coming  a 
sudden  and  universally  recognizable  catastrophe, 
comparing  it  to  the  lightning  which  fills  the  heavens 
with  sudden  flame  or  to  the  flood  which  swept  sud- 
denly over  the  secure  contemporaries  of  Noah,  or 

9a 


Jesus 

to  the  downpour  of  fire  and  brimstone  which 
destroyed  Sodom  and  Gomorrha?  Inasmuch  as 
this  view  appears  in  other  Gospel  passages,  and 
corresponds  exactly  to  the  apocalyptic  expectations 
of  contemporary  Judaism,  we  are  certainly  justified 
in  holding  it  to  be  the  actual  opinion  of  Jesus.* 

Jesus  thought  of  the  coming  of  God's  kingdom 
not  only  as  a  sudden  but  an  impending  catastrophe ; 
before  his  generation  had  died  or  even  before  the 
completion  of  the  missionary  work  in  the  cities  of 
Israel,  the  great  event  was  to  take  place  according 
to  Mark  9,  i;  Matthew  16,  28;  10,  23.  In  those 
last  days  at  Jerusalem,  Jesus  seems  to  have  expected 
the  decisive  turn  of  events  in  the  immediate  future. 
Whoever  is  able  to  think  historically,  will  not  find 
fault  with  the  fact  that  he  was  mistaken.  Like  all 
heroes,  Jesus  was  a  child  of  his  nation  and  his  era 
and  shared  their  messianic  expectations ;  it  was  this 
which  made  him  able  to  do  the  reformatory  work 
of  his  time.  The  firm  faith  in  the  proximity  of 
the  decisive  turn  was  the  impulse  and  telling  power 
of  his  activity ;  inasmuch  as  the  highest  ideal  filling 

*  Luke's  saying  (17,  20  seq.)  is  taken  by  that  Evangelist  from  the 
Pauline  spiritualization  of  the  kingdom  idea  (Romans  14,  17)  and 
put  into  the  mouth  of  Jesus  in  this  passage  so  as  to  limit  or  correct 
the  catastrophic  notion  of  the  miraculous  dawn  of  the  kingdom  as 
given  in  the  oldest  tradition.  In  the  same  way  the  Evangelist  has 
inserted  the  traditional  word  about  the  validity  of  the  Law  (Luke 
16,  17)  between  two  other  sayings  which  are  of  such  nature  as 
to  break  its  force.  This  method  of  adding  new  interpretations  to 
the  tradition  which  render  the  latter  harmless,  was  usual  in  early 
Christianity,  where  tradition  had  not  yet  crystallized  into  a  canon- 
ized text, 

93 


Christian  Origins 

his  soul  was  an  impending,  immediate  reaHty,  it 
lifted  him  above  the  petty  cares  and  interests  of 
earthly  life  and  caused  him  to  recognize  the  uncon- 
ditional surrender  of  the  whole  heart  and  life  to 
the  will  of  the  only  good  God  as  the  true  destiny 
of  man.  This  kernel  of  his  faith  remains  the  model 
for  all  time ;  it  preserves  a  truth  for  us,  even  though 
history  itself  has  led  us  to  differentiate  between  the 
permanent  kernel  and  the  temporary  form,  to  recog- 
nize the  realization  of  the  divine  will,  no  longer  in 
miraculous  catastrophes,  but  in  the  continuous 
education  of  humanity  through  the  natural  evolu- 
tion of  social  life.  Nevertheless,  the  acknowledg- 
ment of  the  absolute  value  of  the  kingdom  of  God 
always  preserves  its  force,  the  absolute  duty  of  each 
individual  to  surrender  himself  to  this  eternal  object 
of  the  universe,  rises  superior  to  all  finite  and  par- 
ticular objects,  and  there  remains  the  grave  respon- 
sibility of  each  one  for  his  own  conduct  in  respect 
to  this  highest  purpose  of  life. 

The  teachings  of  Jesus  foreshadow  this  ethical 
individualistic  turn  of  the  ideas  of  messianic  king- 
dom and  judgment.  For,  despite  his  close  adher- 
ence to  the  prevailing  Jewish  pictures  of  the  future, 
he  did  depart  from  them  at  one  important  point. 
In  the  words  of  Jesus,  there  is  no  mention  of  the 
victory  of  the  Jewish  nation  over  the  heathen  and 
the  revenge  on  these  enemies,  which  had  been  for 
the  others,  especially  the  Pharisees,  the  most  im- 
portant matter  in  the  messianic  period  of  salvation. 

94 


Jesus 

Whenever  he  speaks  of  judgment  to  come,  he  never 
treats  of  the  punishment  of  the  heathen  nations, 
but  always  of  the  verdict  concerning  the  fate  of  the 
individual.  The  moral  earning  of  each  individual 
life  is  then  to  appear:  the  quiet  piety  of  the 
secluded  chamber  and  the  quiet  unostentatious  bene- 
factions the  Father  in  Heaven  will  reward  in 
public;  the  loyal  servant  will  enter  into  the  joy  of 
the  master;  but  the  proud  and  certain  sinners,  the 
merciless  who  cannot  forgive  and  say  *  Lord,  Lord,' 
but  did  not  do  God's  will — they  will  be  excluded 
from  the  community  of  the  blessed  and  consigned 
to  extremest  darkness  or  hell.  The  judgment  will 
separate  the  wheat  from  the  tares,  good  from  foul 
fish,  by  according  to  each  the  fate  which  he 
deserves. 

With  this  thought  of  judgment,  the  idea  of 
reward  is  inextricably  bound  up.  It  is  often  em- 
ployed as  a  motive  for  sacrifice  and  benevolence  or 
a  consolation  for  the  suffering  and  persecuted.  The 
sayings  about  the  recompense  for  fasts  and  prayers 
(Matthew  6,  4;  6,  18)  especially  are  so  close  to  the 
Jewish  notion  of  the  merit  of  that  kind  of  "  good 
works,"  that  one  might  feel  tempted  to  dispute  their 
authenticity.  So  much  the  more  noteworthy  that 
while  the  idea  of  reward  has  been  preserved,  yet  it 
has  been  ennobled  by  elevating  it  beyond  the  legal  to 
the  moral  judgment  of  actions.  According  to  the 
parable  of  the  laborers  in  the  vineyard,  wherein  all 
receive  like  wages  irrespective  of  the  amount  of 

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Christian  Origins 

work,  wages  can  no  longer  be  considered  legal  rec- 
ompense, but  recompense  becomes  a  free  gift  of 
grace  granted  to  all  who  follow  the  divine  call. 
Luke  (17,  7  seq.)  gives  man  no  more  legal  claim 
to  reward  before  God  than  the  servant  who  has 
simply  done  his  duty.  At  the  same  time,  a  rich 
reward  is  promised  to  the  loyal  servant :  The  Lord 
himself  will  serve  him  (Luke  12,  37)  or  he  will  be 
set  over  many  (Matthew  25,  21),  which  means  that 
the  field  of  his  activity  will  be  broadened  according 
to  the  measure  of  thoroughness  displayed.  This 
thought,  that  social  standing  depends  on  the  extent 
of  accomplishment,  contains  an  incontestable  truth. 
In  principle,  this  puts  an  end  to  the  motive  of 
reward  in  the  sense  of  mere  utilitarian  ethics,  for 
the  highest  norm  of  morality  is  recognized  in  the 
perfect  goodness  of  God  as  the  father  and  the  high- 
est motive  in  the  love  of  God  and  fellowmen. 

The  old  notion  that  the  designation  of  God  as 
"  father  "  was  entirely  new  with  Jesus  and  was 
based  on  miraculous  revelation,  is  not  entirely  cor- 
rect. For  the  historical  mind,  this  absolute  miracle 
resolves  itself  into  an  evolution,  which  may  be 
comprehended  psychologically.  In  the  earliest 
stages  of  religion,  the  deity  is  named  father,  in  the 
physical  sense;  thus  Homer  calls  Zeus  the  father 
of  the  gods  and  men.  In  a  higher  sense,  Plato 
calls  God  the  Father  of  the  universe,  who  in  his 
unenv)ang  goodness  desired  that  all  should  be  as 
much  like  him  as  possible;   hence,  it  is  man's  task 

9^ 


Jesus 

to  become  most  like  God  through  righteousness 
and  piety.  Seneca,  too,  spoke  of  God's  fatherly 
attitude,  by  which  he  educated  men  to  virtue;  he 
called  the  unlimited  benevolence  which  made  evil- 
doing  on  their  part  impossible,  the  nature  of  the 
gods,  and  said  that  true  worship  consisted  in  imita- 
ting them ;  "  would  you  imitate  the  gods,  give  to 
the  ingrate,  for  the  sun  rises  upon  the  godless  and 
the  rain  falls  on  the  fields."  In  the  Israelitish 
religion,  God  was  the  father  of  Israel  from  of  old; 
the  Israelites  were  his  sons  and  the  relation  of 
father  and  son  in  the  post-exilic  wisdom-books  is 
applied  not  only  to  the  nation  as  a  whole,  but  also 
to  each  pious  individual.  Sirach  calls  God  "  Father 
and  Lord  of  my  life  " ;  in  the  Wisdom  of  Solomon 
and  in  the  Psalms  of  Solomon,  the  pious  are  "  God's 
sons,"  and  Philo  speaks  of  the  "  Heavenly  Father  " 
who  sends  the  divine  powers  down  into  the  soul  as 
into  his  temple,  to  purify  and  to  sanctify  it.  From 
the  Rabbinic  writings,  we  gather  that,  at  the  time 
of  Jesus,  the  expression  "  Heavenly  Father,"  "  our 
Father  in  Heaven,"  had  become  a  popular  substitute 
for  the  old  name  of  God  which  had  fallen  into  dis- 
use. It  cannot  be  said  that  Jesus  taught  a  new 
God  as  though  he  had  set  up  God  the  loving  father 
as  against  the  righteous  God  of  the  Jews:  the 
Jews,  too,  knew  the  merciful  God  and  the  father  in 
Heaven.  Again,  for  Jesus,  too,  the  fundamental 
conviction  remains  that  the  almighty  and  holy  God, 
the  Lord  of  Heaven  and  Earth,  the  only  good  God, 

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was  infinitely  removed  beyond  all  bodily  weakness 
and  human  sin,  that  he  is  the  King  who  demands  a 
reckoning  of  his  servants,  that  he  is  the  Judge,  more 
to  be  feared  than  men  because  he  has  the  power  not 
only  to  kill  the  body,  but  to  destroy  both  body  and 
soul  in  hell.  But  we  must  not  forget  that  in  reli- 
gions dogmatic  thoughts  are  not  exhaustive,  but 
there  are  emotions  and  powers  of  instinct  which 
they  conjure  up  in  the  soul,  and  these  differ  with 
the  peculiarity  of  individual  natures:  the  various 
ways  in  which  the  idea  of  God  reacts  on  the  indi- 
vidual's emotions  naturally  act  again  on  the  idea 
of  God,  in  such  manner  that  the  side  to  which  the 
emotions  respond  most  markedly,  moves  into  the 
foreground  and  predominates  over  the  other  aspects. 
Hence  the  well-known  saying,  "  As  the  man,  so 
his  God."  This  universal  experience  will  lead  us 
to  a  psychological  conception  of  the  peculiarity  of 
Jesus'  consciousness  of  God,  without  resorting  to 
miracles. 

Though  the  father-title  of  God  was  not  strange 
to  the  Jews  of  Jesus'  time,  yet  the  trust  in  God's 
paternal  attitude  could  never  be  of  all-pervading 
and  regulating  importance,  because,  to  the  great 
majority,  God  was  still  pre-eminently  the  heavenly 
king  of  the  Jewish  nation;  that  is,  the  religious 
consciousness  was  still  nationally  and  legally  bound, 
governed  by  the  slave  spirit  of  fear  and  disturbed 
by  the  hatred  of  the  heathen  as  well  as  of  the  unclean 
compatriot.      In  Jesus'   soul,   however,  there  was 

98 


Jesus 

neither  fear  nor  hatred,  but  merciful  love  suffused  it, 
that  love,  which  was  drawn  most  strongly  to  those 
who  needed  help,  and  therefore  did  not  shrink  with 
pride  from  the  direct  misery  of  sin  and  guilt,  but 
sought  to  heal  it  and  dared  to  conquer  it.  Because 
Jesus  felt  this  merciful  love  as  the  strongest  and  best 
within  himself,  he  could  not  do  other  than  think  it 
the  highest  in  God,  the  fundamental  quality  of  the 
divine  Being  to  which  his  power  and  his  righteous- 
ness were  subordinate.  Thus  God  became  for  him 
omnipotence  of  love, — a  father  in  whom  benevolence 
is  not  only  a  quality  alongside  of  others,  but  is  his 
innermost  nature,  whose  goodness  is  inexhaustible 
in  giving  and  ceaseless  in  forgiving,  whose  sun 
shines  upon  the  wicked  as  upon  the  good,  and  whose 
rain  descends  alike  upon  the  righteous  and  the 
unrighteous.  In  nature,  Jesus  sees  the  revelation 
of  the  providential  power  and  goodness  of  the 
Creator :  against  his  will,  no  sparrow  falls  from  the 
house-top,  no  hair  from  our  head;  he  clothes  the 
lilies  of  the  field  and  feeds  the  birds  of  the  air. 
How  much  the  more  may  man  depend  on  his  provi- 
dential care, — that  man,  whose  soul  has  greater  value 
than  all  the  rest  of  the  world,  who  is  not  only  God's 
creature,  but  his  child,  whose  destiny  it  is  to  become 
his  image  in  moral  perfection,  in  purity  of  heart  and 
compassion.  Thus  the  divine  and  the  human  ideals 
become  allied  for  Jesus :  willing  the  good  which  he 
felt  to  be  the  highest  and  the  strongest  in  himself 
becomes  the  summit  of  all  reality,  the  world-govern- 

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ing  power  and  therewith  the  prototype,  the  binding 
Law  and  the  greatest  good  for  all  men. 

With  this  ideal  estimate  of  men,  however,  Jesus 
combines  the  sober  view  and  keen  judgment  of  actual 
experience.  Men  are  to  become  God's  children  by 
their  increasing  moral  likeness  to  God;  by  nature 
they  are  not  really  that  which  they  are  destined  to  be, 
having  little  resemblance  to  their  model.  "  No  one 
is  good  save  God  alone,"  and  all  men  must  pray 
"  forgive  our  sins !"  The  verdict  upon  all  of  them 
(Luke  II,  13)  is  that  they  are  "evil,"  for  (Mark 
7,  21  seq.)  in  the  hearts  of  all  of  them  lurk  "evil 
thoughts  "  of  sensual  and  selfish  desires  expressing 
themselves  through  words  and  deeds,  which  make 
man  unclean.  Jesus  did  not  see  evil  only  in  action 
contrary  to  law  as  the  Jews  did,  and  not  as  the 
Greeks  in  material  corporeity,  conditioning  our 
existence  on  earth,  but  i'n  the  unclean  and  selfish 
inclinations  of  the  heart  which  conflict  with  our 
ideal  being,  and  destroy  body  and  soul.  Hence  the 
command :  remove  the  eye  and  the  hand  which 
would  tempt  thee  to  evil,  so  that  thy  whole  body  be 
not  thrown  into  hell !  This  destructive  power  of  evil 
appears  to  Jesus  in  the  idea  of  the  devil  and  his 
demonic  host;  he  did  not,  as  is  often  said,  merely 
accommodate  himself  to  a  popular  notion,  but  he 
shared  it  in  all  seriousness;  it  is  one  of  the  pieces 
of  his  world-picture  which  shows  him  to  be  a  child 
of  his  period,  h\xi  which  has  no  authority  for  us. 
The  devil  as  the  personified  existence  of  evil  belongs 

100 


Jesus 

to  Oriental  dualism  which  cannot  harmonize  logi- 
cally with  ethical  monotheism,  the  rulership  of  one 
good  God.  That  Jesus  held  theoretically  to  this  con- 
tradiction must  not  surprise  us  in  a  prophet  who  did 
not  reflect  philosophically  concerning  God  and  the 
world;  but  what  is  more  important  and  necessary 
for  religion,  he  surmounted  the  obstacle  practically, 
for  he  dissipated  the  fear  of  devils,  which  rested 
heavily  upon  men  then  by  the  power  of  his  trust  in 
God  and  his  love  of  men.  In  this  connection,  his 
cure  of  the  sick  assumes  an  importance  not  to  be 
underestimated.  We  will  be  less  inclined  to  doubt 
that  they  have  a  historical  basis  when  we  recall  that 
similar  events  happen  still;  certain  sicknesses,  par- 
ticularly those  caused  by  disturbances  of  the  nervous 
system,  such  as  paralysis,  are  temporarily  and  even 
permanently  cured  by  the  spiritual  influence  of  sug- 
gestion on  the  soul  life  of  the  patient.  Similarly, 
we  will  have  to  think  that  through  the  suggestive 
influence  of  Jesus'  personality,  faith  was  wakened 
and  new  life-powers  released  in  those  patients  whom 
they  considered  "possessed";  such  miraculous  suc- 
cesses seemed  to  Jesus  as  well  as  those  around  him 
the  victory  of  a  superior  spirit  over  the  demonic 
spirits  in  the  patients,  as  they  actually  were  the  vic- 
tory of  his  faith  and  his  love  over  the  misery  and 
sin  of  men.  They  were,  therefore,  tangible  proof  to 
him  that  Satan's  power  was  broken  and  the  kingdom 
of  God  come.  (Matthew  12,  28.)  With  that  same 
confidence  of  a  trusting  love  which  enabled  him  to 

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heal  sick  bodies,  he  knew  that  he  was  justified  in 
Hfting  guilt-laden,  repentant  souls  by  the  consolatory 
word  of  the  forgiveness  of  sins.  (Mark  2,  10  seq.) 
Though  his  condemnation  of  sin  was  severe,  yet  was 
his  sympathy  equally  strong  for  such  sinners  who 
were  suffering  under  their  guilt  and  were  sighing 
for  relief  from  their  bonds,  longing  for  a  new  and 
purer  life. 

In  such  suffering  of  repentance  and  longing  for 
rescue,  he  spied  the  glimmering  spark  of  the  good 
beneath  the  ashes  of  a  lost  life;  by  unloving  hardness, 
he  knew  that  the  spark  would  be  extinguished,  while 
a  sympathetic  human  love,  arousing  the  trust  in 
God's  forgiving  and  renewing  grace,  would  fan  it 
into  flame.  In  the  parable  of  the  lost  son,  Jesus  tells 
of  sin  and  salvation  in  most  straightforward  fashion ; 
how  sin  bears  its  punishment  within  itself,  by  render- 
ing man  most  unhappy;  how  this  feeling  of  misery 
engenders  the  longing  for  salvation,  the  homesick- 
ness for  the  lost  paternal  roof,  and  finally  the  deci- 
sion to  turn  about  and  return  home ;  how  the  love  of 
the  father  goes  out  to  the  repentant  who  returns  and 
freely  forgives  all  guilt  without  demanding  repent- 
ance or  satisfaction  and  admits  the  sinner  into  a  new 
life  close  to  his  own.  These  are  the  essential  truths 
of  the  religion  of  salvation,  which  Jesus  believed 
and  preached,  because  his  own  merciful  love  of  the 
sinful  and  the  suffering  was  the  guarantee  of  a  simi- 
lar attitude  of  his  heavenly  father. 

Since  the  natural   inclination  of  all  men,   even 

102 


Jesus 

though  they  have  not  given  themselves  to  the  Hfe 
of  crude  sin,  is  not  as  good  and  as  pure  as  that  of  a 
child  of  God  and  a  subject  of  God's  kingdom  ought 
to  be,  therefore  the  demand  is  addressed  to  all 
without  exception :  *'  Repent  ye !  "  Instead  of  self- 
love  expressing  itself  in  impure  and  selfish  desires  of 
every  kind  there  should  appear  the  love  of  God  with 
the  whole  heart  and  the  love  of  neighbors  as  our- 
selves. (Mark  12,  28  seq.)  According  to  Deu- 
teronomy (6,  5),  love  of  God  with  the  whole  heart 
is  a  fundamental  demand  of  the  monotheistic  belief 
in  God,  and  Leviticus  (19,  18)  commands  the  love 
of  compatriots  as  ourselves.  Hillel,  the  Pharisaic 
teacher,  had  broadened  this  command  to  include  the 
love  of  all  men  and  considered  that  command  the 
essence  of  the  Law.  Here,  too,  it  must  be  said  that 
the  content  of  this  double  command  was  not  actually 
new  with  Jesus,  but  the  manner  with  which  he 
applied  it  seriously  to  practice  was.  In  Judaism,  this 
view  of  Hillel  could  not  force  its  way  because  the 
teachers  themselves,  much  less  the  others,  could  not 
free  themselves  of  the  fundamental  error  of  legal 
religion  and  ethics, — the  breaking  up  of  the  divine 
will  into  a  number  of  positive  commands  and  par- 
ticularly prohibitions  (the  Pharisees  counted  613 
such),  all  of  equal  force  because  supposedly  com- 
manded by  God ;  and  among  these,  the  ritual  regula- 
tions were  at  least  equally  as  important,  in  fact, 
more  important  than  the  moral  commands.  For  this 
reason,  religion  and  morality  in  Judaism  had  degen- 

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Christian  Origins 

erated  to  that  rigidity  and  externaHzation  which  had 
begun  in  Phariseeism  and  culminated  in  Talmudism. 
Jesus  broke  this  bond  by  tracing  morahty  back  to  the 
inner  attitude  of  the  heart  and  taught  a  proper 
understanding  of  the  free  employment  of  the  one 
fundamental  instinct,  the  love  of  God  and  of  man. 
The  slavish  obedience  to  an  external  was  thus  super- 
seded and  the  freedom  of  the  moral  personality 
placed  in  its  stead;  that  freedom  is  not  egoistic 
license,  for  it  feels  itself  bound  to  God's  divine  will, 
not  by  slavish  fear,  but  by  childlike  love.  There- 
with the  moral  was  recognized,  not  only  in  its  essen- 
tial unity  as  the  self -activity  and  development  of  the 
good  will,  but  ethics  and  religion  were  united  into  an 
irreducible  unity.  Just  as  everything  moral  should 
be  rooted  in  the  love  of  God,  so  should  all  reli- 
gion find  employment  in  the  love  of  man.  A  new 
estimate  of  ceremonial  activity  was  thus  created ;  no 
longer  as  in  the  ancient  heathen  and  Jewish  world 
is  it  a  service  to  be  performed  for  God  by  which 
some  credit  with  God  is  won,  or  God's  favor  bought, 
but  it  is  a  natural  expression  of  the  pious  attitude 
and  has  only  so  much  value  as  the  external  corre- 
sponds with  the  internal :  where  the  inner  attitude 
is  missing,  there  all  fasts  and  prayers  are  a  sem- 
blance without  value,  empty  hypocrisy.  (Matthew 
6,  I  seq.)  From  this  viewpoint,  the  Sabbath  observ- 
ance is  no  longer  a  service  which  must  be  performed 
because  God  once  commanded  it,  but  it  is  a  gift 
of  God  for  the  welfare  of  men  (Mark  2,  28)  ;  hence 

104 


Jesus 

the  observance  most  worthy  of  such  a  day  is  service 
for  the  benefit  of  our  fellowmen  (Mark  3,  4;  Luke 
6,  9).  For  this  reason,  ceremonial  performances 
must  never  be  accounted  greater  than  the  perform- 
ance of  plain  moral  duties.  Jesus  says  with  Hosea : 
"  Mercy  and  not  sacrifice,  I  ask !"  and  he  condemns 
most  sternly  the  Pharisaic  practice  which  valued  a 
pious  charity  more  highly  than  the  performance  of 
filial  duties  and  employed  public  prayer  as  a  means 
of  satisfying  vanity  and  greed ;  on  the  contrary,  he 
would  even  have  the  sacrificial  rite  interrupted  so  as 
not  to  delay  the  conciliation  of  an  angry  brother. 
(Matthew  5,  23.) 

Much  as  Jesus  was  conscious  that  this  internaliza- 
tion of  the  moral  was  the  teaching  of  a  "  better 
righteousness  "  than  that  of  the  scribes  and  the  Phar- 
isees, yet  he  was  far  removed  from  the  declaration 
that  the  Jewish  Law  zvas  done  away  with.  Accord- 
ing to  several  sayings,  the  authenticity  of  which  we 
are  scarcely  justified  in  doubting,  he  taught  the  abso- 
lute, continuous  validity  of  the  Law  in  all  its  parts 
down  to  the  last  jot  and  tittle,  and  he  urged  his  dis- 
ciples to  follow,  not  the  works  but  the  teachings  of 
the  scribes,  though  they  were  not  to  set  the  moral 
aside  for  the  sake  of  the  ritual  in  the  Law,  yet  they 
were  to  perform  the  latter  and  not  omit  the  former. 
(Matthew  5,  17  seq.;  23,  3;  2^,  23;  Luke  16,  17.) 
With  all  the  piety  of  a  pious  Jew,  Jesus  felt  himself 
subservient  and  attached  to  the  Law,  without  con- 
sciousness of  the  fact  that  in  principle  his  interprc- 

105 


Christian  Origins 

tation  of  morality  actually  had  moved  beyond  the 
standpoint  of  the  Law.  He  did  not  mean  to  abro- 
gate the  Law,  but  to  fulfill  it,  and  to  bring  its  true 
meaning  into  force  by  opposing  the  distorted  inter- 
pretation of  the  Jewish  school  tenets.  But  in  this 
struggle,  he  was  made  to  utter  occasional  expres- 
sions, whose  real  extent,  unconsciously  perhaps,  not 
only  included  the  negation  of  the  mere  school  tenets 
but  of  the  Law  itself.  Thus,  when  asked  why  his 
disciples  did  not  fast,  he  spoke  the  important  word 
about  the  undressed  cloth  which  was  of  no  use  for 
an  old  garment  and  the  new  wine  which  would  burst 
the  old  wine-skins  (Mark  2,  21);  in  effect,  these 
utterances  tell  of  the  impossibility  of  harmonizing 
the  new  form  of  piety  with  the  old  life  under  the 
Law.  Or  when  he  says  (Mark  2,  28)  that  the 
Sabbath  is  here  for  the  sake  of  man  and  the  Son  of 
man  (meaning  man  generally)  is  lord  even  of  the 
Sabbath,  then  the  relativity  of  the  Sabbath  law  as 
against  the  moral  purpose  of  man  himself  is  uttered 
in  such  form  that  the  absolute  validity  of  the  ritual 
law  seems  seriously  questioned.  During  the  dispute 
about  washings,  the  principle  is  set  up  that  "  there 
is  nothing  from  without  the  man,  that  going  into 
him  can  defile  him,"  only  the  wicked  thoughts  which 
go  out  from  his  heart  are  defiling  (Mark  7,  8 
seq.) ;  wherewith  the  Mosaic  laws  concerning 
cleansing  and  food  are  robbed  of  all  value.  Jesus 
bases  his  absolute  rejection  of  divorce  on  the  original 
intention  of  the  Creator,  and  declares  the  opposing 

106 


Jesus 

statute  of  Mosaic  Law  to  be  the  lawmak/sr's  conces- 
sion to  the  weakness  and  hard-heartedness  of  men. 
If  the  passage  about  the  destruction  of  "  the  temple 
that  is  made  with  hands  "  and  the  construction  of 
another  made  without  hands  was  actually  spoken 
by  Jesus  (according  to  Mark  14,  58;  15,  29,  it  was 
ascribed  to  him  by  "  false  witnesses  "),  then  it  could 
mean  scarcely  anything  else  than  the  hope  of  the 
near  end  of  the  legal  temple  service  and  in  its  stead 
the  inauguration  of  a  more  spiritual  service  of  God. 
When  we  compare  these  passages,  which  are  beyond 
and  contrary  to  the  Law,  with  those  explanations  of 
a  conservative  tendency,  it  seems  to  me  that  we  get 
the  impression  that  Jesus  was  freer  from  the  Mosaic 
law  within  himself  than  he  was  conscious  of  being, 
and  that  he  did  not  sense  the  contradiction  between 
inner  freedom  and  external  hold,  because  the  moral 
was  of  such  great  importance  that  the  mere  cere- 
monial might  remain  alongside  as  an  undisturbed 
subsidiary.  Only  in  such  cases,  where  the  moral 
was  endangered  by  the  ceremonial,  did  he  oppose  it 
so  freely  that  it  gives  us  a  glimpse  of  a  possible 
future  abrogation  of  the  Law.  From  this  stand- 
point to  that  of  a  conscious  breach  with  the  Law 
was  a  long  step  which  Jesus  himself  never  made. 
This  is  one  of  the  points  where  it  is  especially  notice- 
able, that  the  germ  of  the  new  religion  was  present 
in  the  attitude  of  Jesus,  but  enveloped  in  the  tradi- 
tional forms  of  his  nation  and  his  dav ;  the  release 
of  this  germ  and  the  realization  of  its  independence 

107 


Christian  Origins 

was  a  development  which  remained  for  the  apostoHc 
congregation. 

A  consideration  of  the  ascetic  side  of  Jesus'  ethics, 
its  rigorous  demand  for  the  abandonment  of  the 
present  world  and  its  social  benefits,  gives  us  a 
similar  impression  of  bias  resulting  from  environ- 
ment. This  ascetic  side  to  an  ethics  of  love  has 
always  been  found  paradoxical,  and  attempts  have 
been  made  to  weaken  it  by  rationalization  or  to 
explain  it  away  by  allegorization.  Sometimes  it  has 
been  romantically  lauded  as  heroic  idealism;  ele- 
vated so  far  beyond  human  weakness  that  we  can 
only  admire  and  never  attain  it ;  this  interpretation, 
logically  followed  out,  must  needs  lead  to  the  Catho- 
lic dogma  of  a  double  morality.  Our  purely  his- 
torical method  needs  neither  rationalistic  nor 
romantic  fictions,  inasmuch  as  it  sees  in  the  ascetic 
rigorism  of  the  ethics  of  Jesus  the  inevitable 
practical  complement  and  consequence  of  his 
apocalyptic  expectation  of  the  impending  catas- 
trophe, ending  the  present  and  ushering  in  the 
new  world.  The  characteristic  individuality  of  the 
actual  Jesus  of  history  cannot  be  understood,  if  this 
condition  imposed  by  the  history  of  the  time  on  his 
entire  mode  of  thinking,  including  its  moral  side,  is 
disregarded.  While  it  must  be  conceded  that 
ascetic  rigorism  is  closely  related  to  ethical  idealism, 
yet  they  differ  in  this:  ideal  requirements  do  not 
contradict  given  conditions  of  human  society ;  despite 
their  sublimity,  they  are  capable  of  fulfillment;  but 

jo8 


Jesus 

ascetic,  rigoristic  demands  include  a  radical  negation 
of  the  historical  life  of  human  society.  If  Jesus 
commands  that  we  should  love  our  enemies,  that  is, 
not  revengefully  requiting  evil  by  evil,  but  conciliat- 
ing and  conquering  the  evil  by  good,  we  will  be  com- 
pelled to  regard  this  command  (taught,  too,  by  other 
wise  men,  as  Plato,  Buddha,  Seneca,  Epictetus)  as 
a  sublime  duty,  difficult  but  not  impossible  of  fulfill- 
ment because  it  does  not  run  counter  in  any  way  to 
the  order  of  human  society.  But  when  Jesus  adds : 
"Resist  not  him  that  is  evil :  but  whosoever  smiteth 
thee  on  thy  right  cheek,  turn  to  him  the  other  also. 
And  if  any  man  would  go  to  law  with  thee,  and  take 
away  thy  coat,  let  him  have  thy  cloak  also"  ( Matthew 
5,  39;  Luke  6,  29),  one  cannot  honestly  deny  that 
such  a  command  cannot  be  carried  out  in  any  society 
because  it  abrogates  all  law  and  gives  an  easy  victory 
to  brute  force.  Only  the  temper  of  the  times  fur- 
nishes the  explanation, — times  when  the  world  was 
about  to  crumble  and  all  social  values  were  doomed 
to  destruction  in  the  great  judgment  conflagration; 
only  under  such  circumstances  did  it  seem  fitting 
to  secure  the  glory  of  the  coming  world  by  complete 
abnegation  of  personal  rights  and  by  total  indiffer- 
ence to  honor  and  shame  in  the  disintegrating  world. 
The  same  holds  of  all  the  sayings  of  Jesus  in 
which  he  requires  of  his  disciples  a  complete  separa- 
tion from  all  that  binds  them  to  this  world,  above  all 
from  property,  and  even  from  family  ties.  The 
story  of  the  rich  young  man  is  well  known ;  he  asks 

X09 


Christian  Origins 

what  to  do  in  order  to  participate  in  the  eternal  Hfe, 
and  the  answer  is  a  command  to  sell  all  his  posses- 
sions and  give  the  proceeds  to  the  poor ;  by  obedience 
he  will  have  acquired  a  treasure  in  heaven.  That 
this  was  not  an  exceptional  case,  but  was  intended 
to  stand  for  a  general  principle,  is  clearly  indicated 
by  the  remark  which  Jesus  adds :  it  is  a  greater  im- 
possibility for  a  rich  man  to  enter  into  heaven  than 
for  a  camel  to  go  through  the  eye  of  a  needle — such 
an  impossibility  that  a  miracle  alone  could  accom- 
plish it.  Apparently  Jesus  judged  wealth  in  itself 
to  be  pernicious, — the  greatest  insuperable  danger 
for  the  soul  of  its  owner,  an  idol  ("Mammon") 
which  holds  man  so  completely  in  his  service  that 
he  cannot  possibly  serve  God  at  the  same  time ;  hence 
the  universal  nature  of  the  requirement  that  this 
soul-destroying  ballast  be  thrown  overboard  so  that 
tlie  safe  harbor  of  God's  kingdom  be  made  in  the 
company  of  the  poor.  "  Sell  that  ye  have  and  give 
alms ;  make  for  yourself  purses  which  wax  not  old, 
a  treasure  in  the  heavens  that  faileth  not.  So  there- 
fore whosoever  be  of  you  that  renounceth  not  all 
that  he  hath,  he  cannot  be  my  disciple!''  (Luke 
12,  33;  14,  33.)  It  is  customary  to  interpret  these 
and  similar  passages  spiritually,  in  the  sense  that 
one  should  not  be  greedy  or  selfish  and  cling  to 
wealth  with  the  whole  heart,  but  as  for  the  rest, 
wealth  is  permitted  and  should  be  employed  for 
good  and  reasonable  purposes;  that  is  the  way  in 
which  we,  the  cultured  of  to-day,  think,  because 

110 


Jesus 

we  consider  wealth  like  all  other  earthly  things  a 
means  to  moral  activity  and  because  we  would  con- 
sider surrender  of  private  property,  the  surrender 
of  the  inalienable  possession  of  personal  independ- 
ence of  the  individual  in  society.  But  Jesus  thought 
like  a  child  of  his  time  in  this  matter  and  those 
thoughts  differ  radically  from  ours:  wealth  was 
solely  a  means  of  buying  pleasures  and  the  wealthy 
were  the  easy-going  worldlings  who  oppressed  the 
poor  and  despised  the  kingdom  of  God,  so  he 
thought;  and,  above  all,  he  was  convinced  that  he 
was  about  to  face  the  miraculous  catastrophe  which 
should  put  an  end  to  all  existing  things  and  make 
all  things  new.  Would  it  have  been  worth  while 
making  rules  for  the  further  maintenance  of  so- 
ciety? This  viewpoint  explains  those  harsh  words 
in  which  Jesus  demands  the  ruthless  sundering  of 
family  ties :  "  Leave  the  dead  to  bury  their  own 
dead ;  but  go  thou  and  publish  abroad  the  kingdom 
of  God."  "  If  any  man  cometh  unto  me  and  hateth 
not  his  own  father  and  mother,  and  wife  and  chil- 
dren, and  brethren  and  sisters,  yea,  and  his  own  life 
also,  he  cannot  be  my  disciple."  (Luke  9,  60;  14, 
26.)  How  strange  such  words  sound  in  the  mouth 
of  a  teacher  who  had  made  love  the  cardinal  virtue, 
who  regarded  the  sanctity  of  marriage  so  highly  that 
he  rejected  all  possibility  of  separation,  who  had 
ranked  filial  duties  above  ceremonial  works  in  divine 
service,  who  had  frequently  evinced  his  own  warm 
love  of  children!    But  we  must  never  forget,  that 

III 


Christian  Origins 

two  souls  dwelt  in  his  breast :  beside  the  hearty  and 
heart-winning  love  for  the  individuals  who  trust- 
fully approached  him,  there  glowed  in  him  the  en- 
thusiasm of  the  prophet  of  God's  kingdom.  As  such 
prophet,  his  present  world  was  ripe  for  destruction, 
and  therefore  whatever  bound  man  to  the  world, 
family  no  less  than  wealth  and  property,  was  but  a 
hindrance,  heroically  to  be  surmounted  for  the  sake 
of  participation  in  the  life  of  the  coming  world. 
This  alone  explains  why  Jesus  gave  no  instructions 
concerning  the  social  duties  of  husband  and  wife, 
parents  and  children,  work  in  the  profession,  and 
life  in  the  state.  The  well-known  passage  (Mark 
12,  17)  "  Render  unto  Caesar  the  things  that  are 
Caesars,  and  unto  God  the  things  that  are  God's," 
does  not  mean  that  political  duties  are  to  be  based 
on  religion  but  rather  intends  to  separate  political 
matters  from  religion  so  completely  that  they  be- 
come as  indifferent  to  the  pious  as  all  other  earthly 
cares.  This  complete  disregard  of  all  that  goes  to 
make  up  the  content  of  social  ethics  cannot  be  ex- 
plained, as  some  think,  by  saying  that  Jesus  desired 
to  submit  the  arrangement  of  these  things  to  the 
natural  development  of  the  congregation ;  such  rea- 
soning forgets  that  Jesus  saw  no  prospect  of 
"  natural  development  "  but  expected  a  supernatural 
and  sudden  catastrophe  making  all  things  new  at 
once. 

Since  history  itself  has  swept  away  this  expecta- 
tion for  us,  it  is  clear  that  the  ascetic  rigorous  de- 

112 


Jesus 

mands  of  Jesus'  ethics  which  rested  upon  it,  cannot 
be  vaHd  for  us  in  the  original  Hteral  sense.  I  hold 
that  it  is  far  more  expedient  to  concede  this  without 
reserve  than  to  torture  those  bold  expressions  with 
the  doubtful  arts  of  interpretation  or  to  edge  away 
from  them  with  a  bad  conscience.  The  more  clearly 
we  define  for  ourselves  the  difference  between  the 
ethics  of  Jesus  conditioned  by  his  time  and  environ- 
ment and  modern  social  ethics,  the  more  decidedly 
must  we  bring  to  light  the  permanent  kernel  of 
truth  hidden  in  that  temporary  shell.  This  kernel 
may  be  found  in  two  sayings  of  Jesus  which  sum  it 
up :  "  For  whosoever  would  save  his  life  shall  lose 
it:  and  whosoever  shall  lose  his  life  for  my  sake 
shall  find  it.  For'whkt  shall  a  man  be  profited,  if 
he  shall  gain  the  whole  world  and  forfeit  his  soul  ?  " 
(Matthew  i6,  25  seq.)  and  "  But  whosoever  would 
become  great  among  you  shall  be  your  minister; 
and  whosoever  would  be  first  among  you,  shall  be 
servant  of  all."  (Mark  10,  43.)  The  first  means 
that  true  salvation,  the  fulfillment  of  the  life-purpose 
of  the  individual,  depends  upon  a  self-denying,  un- 
reserved surrender  to  the  highest  purpose  of  all,  the 
realization  of  the  divine  will,  of  which  Jesus  knew 
himself  to  be  the  tool.  The  other  means  that  the 
social  value  of  each  depends  upon  the  measure  of  his 
service  to  the  whole  of  society.  Both  reject  that 
egoism  which  seeks  its  own  object  and  in  the  selfish 
gain  of  temporal  possessions  loses  its  eternal  object; 
both  promise  the  richest  life-content  and  permanent 

113 


Christian  Origins 

satisfaction  to  that  self-forgetting  love  which  seeks 
the  fulfillment  of  God's  will  in  the  service  of  human 
society.  "Die  and  become!" — this  is  indeed  an 
ethical  truth  for  all  time ;  a  new  order  of  society  was 
formed  in  the  Christian  congregation  for  all  time  by 
this  principle,  and  according  to  its  norm  it  ought 
to  and  will  become  purer  as  time  goes  on.  In  the 
end,  the  difference  is  merely  this :  for  us,  the  divine 
will  no  longer  reveals  itself  in  supernatural  catas- 
trophes but  in  the  natural  development  of  human 
society,  hence  our  surrender  to  the  divine  will  urges 
us,  not  to  a  breach  with  society  but  to  the  positive, 
moral  employment  and  refinement  of  its  historical 
life  conditions. 

We  have  reviewed  the  teachings  of  Jesus — his 
joyous  message  of  the  coming  kingdom  of  God,  of 
the  fatherhood  of  God,  and  of  the  true  righteous- 
ness of  man  as  God's  child.  The  question  remains : 
what  did  Jesus  think  about  himself,  his  mission  and 
his  position  in  God's  kingdom  ?  The  historical  an- 
swer to  this  question  is  made  peculiarly  difficult  be- 
cause throughout  the  Gospels  the  transformed  ideas 
of  Jesus  as  the  Messiah  and  the  Son  of  God,  which 
either  arose  later  in  the  faith  of  the  congregation 
or  were  colored  by  that  faith,  were  transferred  back 
into  the  earthly  life  of  Jesus  and  the  corresponding 
sayings  were  put  into  his  mouth :  naturally,  this  did 
not  take  place  without  manifold  contradictions  with 
their  own  traditional  recollections  of  the  actual  his- 
torical course  of  events. 

X14 


Jesus 

According  to  the  fourth  Gospel,  Jesus  is  the  in- 
carnate appearance  of  the  Logos  or  the  Son  of  God, 
who  was  with  God  from  the  beginning,  who  was 
himself  a  God,  and  the  disciples  beheld  his  divine 
glory  even  under  the  earthly  cloak  of  the  person 
Jesus.  (John  i,  14.)  According  to  Luke  and  Mat- 
thew, Jesus  is  the  supernaturally-begotten  Son  of 
God,  who  was  hailed  as  the  world  redemeer  by  divine 
spirits  at  birth;  and  even  Mark,  though  he  knows 
nothing  about  the  supernatural  birth,  has  a  celestial 
voice  proclaim  at  his  baptism  that  Jesus  is  the  Son 
of  God  and  the  chosen  object  of  His  love,  or  its 
equivalent,  the  Messiah ;  then  the  demons  of  the  pos- 
sessed acknowledge  him  as  such,  and  many  miracles, 
chiefly  the  transfiguration,  confirm  it.  All  of  this 
belongs  to  the  realm  of  pious  legend;  later  on,  its 
origin  in  the  belief  of  the  congregation  will  be  ex- 
plained. From  a  purely  historical  standpoint,  so 
much  is  certain  that  Jesus  was  not  conscious  of  any 
superhuman  origin  or  nature.  He  appeared  as  a 
prophet,  just  as  the  Baptist  had  before  him;  he 
worked  as  a  teacher  and  healer  among  his  own  peo- 
ple, like  other  predecessors  and  contemporaries.  His 
power  over  sick  souls  and  bodies,  miraculous  as  it 
might  seem,  was  not  an  absolute,  divine  omnipo- 
tence, but  conditioned  by  the  faith  of  the  sick,  as 
appears  in  the  report  of  Mark  (6,  5),  which  says 
that  he  could  "  do  no  mighty  work  "  in  Nazareth 
because  of  the  unbelief  of  his  townsmen.  Neither 
was  his  prophetic  knowledge  unlimited;    the  son 

"5 


Christian  Origins 

knows  not  that  hour  when  the  promised  time  of  sal- 
vation shall  begin,  the  father  alone  knows  (Mark 
13,  32).  In  noble  humility,  Jesus  even  refuses  to 
consider  himself  morally  perfect;  when  one  ad- 
dressed him  "  good  Master,"  he  answered :  '*  Why 
callest  thou  me  good?  none  is  good  save  one,  even 
God."  (Mark  10,  18.)  Therewith  he  placed  him- 
self in  a  category  with  other  men ;  he  prayed  to  God 
as  to  a  father,  just  as  he  had  taught  the  disciples 
to  pray,  "  our  father" ;  he  felt  himself  to  be  the  Son 
of  God  in  no  other  than  the  moral-religious  sense, 
according  to  which  he  called  upon  us  to  become  sons 
of  God  by  making  ourselves  like  our  heavenly  father ; 
he  termed  the  peaceable,  "  Sons  of  God,*'  and  all  who 
do  God's  will,  his  brothers  and  sisters.  (Mark  3, 
35.)  Even  in  such  passages  where  the  name  "  Son 
of  God  "  is  applied  to  Jesus  in  a  unique  sense,  as  by 
the  celestial  voice  at  the  baptism  and  the  transfigura- 
tion, by  the  devil  at  the  temptation,  by  the  high  priest 
at  the  trial,  there  the  words  in  the  older  Gospels  are 
but  another  way  of  saying  "  Messiah  "  and  do  not 
include  any  transcendental  or  metaphysical  meaning. 
On  the  strength  of  the  older  Gospels,  the  truly 
human  self -consciousness  of  Jesus  may  be  declared 
without  doubt  an  established  historical  fact.  It  is 
far  more  difficult  to  answer  the  question  whether 
Jesus  assumed  the  messianic  dignity  and  if  so,  how? 
In  any  event,  that  he  did  not  do  so  from  the  begin- 
ning, may  be  concluded  with  great  probability  from 
the  report  testified  to  by  the  first  three  Gospels  that 

116 


Jesus 

at  the  close  of  his  activity  in  Galilee  on  a  journey  in 
the  neighborhood  of  Caesarea  Philippi,  Jesus  asked 
his  disciples:  "Who  do  men  say  that  I  am?" 
Whereupon  they  answered:  the  (resurrected)  John 
the  Baptist,  or  Elijah  or  some  other  prophet.  Then 
Jesus  asked  them :  "  But  who  say  ye  that  I  am  ?" 
Whereupon  Peter  is  made  to  answer :  "  Thou  art 
the  Christ."  ( Mark  8,  29 ;  in  Luke  "  God's  Christ" ; 
in  Matthew  "  Thou  art  the  Christ,  the  Son  of  the 
living  God.")  Here  the  reader  of  the  Gospels  who 
thinks  historically  faces  this  alternative:  either  the 
many  messianic  expressions  of  Jesus  and  avowals 
of  those  about  him  reported  earlier  in  the  Gospels 
are  historical,  which  makes  the  scene  on  the  road  to 
Caesarea  scarcely  possible,  or  the  scene  is  historical 
and  the  descriptions  of  the  Evangelists,  who  intro- 
duce Jesus  as  the  Messiah  from  the  beginning,  do 
not  rest  on  historical  recollection  but  rest  on  the 
transference  of  the  later  belief  of  the  congregation 
back  to  the  beginning  of  the  life  of  Jesus  or  to  the 
period  of  his  public  activities.  But  this  circum- 
stance, that  the  scene  of  Caesarea  contradicts  the 
other  presupposition  of  the  Gospels  so  crassly,  is  a 
strong  proof  in  favor  of  the  historic  character  of 
Peter's  answer;  the  distinct  statement  of  time  and 
place  is  also  in  its  favor.  To  be  sure  the  continua- 
tion of  the  narrative  brings  new  difficulties,  even  if 
we  confine  ourselves  to  Mark  and  disregard  the  glori- 
fication of  Peter  as  the  rock  upon  which  the  Church 
should  be  founded  (an  expression  which  is  certainly 

117 


Christian  Origins 

unhistorical  and  reported  only  by  Matthew).  On 
the  strength  of  Peter's  declaration,  Mark  reports  that 
Jesus  charged  the  disciples  to  tell  no  man  of  him,  that 
is  of  what  they  had  just  heard  concerning  his  Mes- 
siahship ;  and  that  Jesus  began  to  teach  them  the  ne- 
cessity for  the  suffering  of  the  son  of  man,  the  rejec- 
tion by  the  Jewish  hierarchy,  as  well  as  that  he 
would  be  killed  and  rise  from  the  dead  after  three 
days;  thereupon  Peter  warned  him  strongly  against 
this  fate,  but  Jesus  rebuked  the  anxious  disciple  as 
a  Satan  whose  thoughts  were  human  and  not  divine. 
Immediately  the  question  arises:  Why  did  Jesus 
forbid  the  disciples  to  speak  of  his  Messiahship?  If 
he  believed  himself  to  be  the  Messiah,  or  more  ex- 
actly speaking,  if  he  believed  himself  chosen  for  that 
honor,  must  he  not  have  wished  that  the  people 
should  hear  his  faith  and  that  of  his  disciples  ?  Must 
he  not  have  wished  the  greatest  number  possible  to 
share  that  faith?  In  fact,  a  Messiah  who  would 
wish  to  be  a  Messiah  only  in  secret  is  something  so 
difficult  to  comprehend,  that  we  readily  understand 
how  some  recent  critics  have  arrived  at  the  idea  that 
Jesus  himself  did  not  wish  to  be  considered  the 
Messiah,  but  that  the  belief  of  the  congregation  had 
first  ascribed  this  honor  to  the  resurrected  Jesus  and 
not  to  the  Jesus  of  earth.  Others  have  attempted 
to  solve  this  difficulty  by  assuming  that  Jesus  pre- 
vented the  publication  of  his  Messiahship  by  reason 
of  pedagogic  wisdom  and  foresight,  because  he 
feared  that  the  people  would  take  him  for  a  political 

zx8 


Jesus 

Messiah,  whereas  he  himself  desired  to  be  only  a 
spiritual  Messiah,  or,  by  his  death  and  resurrection, 
a  heavenly  Messiah.  But  a  number  of  serious  ob- 
jections combat  that  hypothesis.  It  is  a  fair  question 
to  ask :  Would  it  not  have  been  the  simplest  way  of 
avoiding  any  such  misunderstanding,  for  Jesus  to 
declare  plainly  and  openly  that  he  did  wish  to  come 
as  the  Messiah,  not  in  the  traditional  Jewish  sense, 
but  in  some  new  spiritual  or  heavenly  sense  ?  There 
is  no  trace  anywhere  that  he  wished  to  give  the  tradi- 
tional Jewish  messianic  idea  any  such  new  interpreta- 
tion, just  as  little  as  in  the  case  of  the  traditional 
idea  of  the  kingdom  of  God.  Yet  both  would  have 
been  urgently  needed,  not  only  for  the  people,  but 
even  for  his  disciples;  for  the  Gospels  often  reveal 
the  extent  to  which  the  latter  shared  the  traditional 
and  popular  notion  of  the  Messiah  and  his  kingdom. 
For  example  when  the  sons  of  Zebedee  ask  for  the 
places  of  honor  at  the  right  and  left  hand  of  the 
Messiah  in  his  glory  (Mark  lo,  37)  or  when  the 
festal  procession,  of  which  the  disciples  were  a  part, 
is  doing  messianic  honors,  greeting  Jesus  as  the 
"  Son  of  David,"  upon  his  entry  into  Jerusalem,  and 
rejoicing  in  the  "  kingdom  that  cometh,  the  kingdom 
of  our  father  David."  (Mark  11,  9  seq.)  Assum- 
ing that  the  pedagogic  wisdom  and  foresight  of 
Jesus  had  caused  him  to  suppress  all  messianic  an- 
nouncements, we  must  expect  that  on  such  occasion 
Jesus  would  not  have  let  the  opportunity  pass  of 
telling  his  disciples  and  friends  that  these  expecta- 

X19 


Christian  Origins 

tions  were  error  and  of  enlightening  them  as  to  the 
true  sense  of  his  messianic  ideas.  He  does  this  no- 
where; he  did  not  disabuse  the  minds  of  the  sons  of 
Zebedee  about  the  places  of  honor  in  his  kingdom, 
but  simply  explained  that  God,  and  not  he,  would 
assign  them;  silently,  he  accepted  Peter's  acknowl- 
edgment of  his  Messiahship  and  the  honors  of  the 
festal  procession;  at  the  cleansing  of  the  temple,  he 
appears  the  powerful  reformer  of  existing  cult-cus- 
toms, and  in  the  parable  of  the  faithless  husband- 
men, he  declares  to  the  hierarchs  with  little  conceal- 
ment the  nearing  end  of  their  dominion.  It  seems 
to  me  that  all  of  this  is  not  calculated  to  give  the 
impression  that  Jesus  rejected  the  popular  notion  of 
the  Messiah  as  the  king  of  God's  people  and  substi- 
tuted for  it  the  new  notion  of  a  spiritual  Messiah. 
The  notion  of  a  purely  spiritual  Messiah,  acting  only 
as  an  educator  of  the  attitude  of  men,  but  lacking 
all  external  power  and  honor,  was  entirely  strange, 
not  only  to  the  faith  of  the  Jews,  but  even  to  the 
early-Christian  congregation ;  the  latter  were  con- 
vinced that  by  resurrecting  their  master,  Jesus,  God 
had  seated  him  at  his  right  hand  and  thereby  "  made 
him  Lord  and  Christ,"  that  is,  God  had  conferred 
upon  him  that  royal  dignity  and  governing  power 
which  was  inseparably  bound  up  with  the  idea  of 
the  Messiah.  How  thoroughly  must  the  disciples 
have  misunderstood  their  master  to  the  end,  if  his 
thoughts  had  not  been  of  that  nature,  but  had  been 
occupied  entirely  with  a  spiritual  Messiah!     This 

120 


Jesus 

idea  like  that  of  the  spiritual  kingdom  of  God  is 
mainly  a  product  of  theological  reflection,  far  re- 
moved from  the  naive,  realistic  conceptions  both  of 
Judaism  and  early-Christianity. 

If  the  hypothesis  of  a  "  spiritual  Messiah  "  is  con- 
sequently to  be  eliminated  from  a  historical  consid- 
eration, the  open  question  remains  whether  there  is 
any  advantage  in  the  hypothesis  of  a  "  heavenly 
Messiah," — the  assumption  that  Jesus  believed  as  did 
the  early  congregation  after  his  death,  that  although 
Jesus  had  not  been  the  Messiah  while  on  earth,  yet 
by  his  death  and  resurrection  he  had  been  chosen 
and  elevated  to  the  heavenly  kingship  of  God's  peo- 
ple, as  such  he  would  reveal  himself  powerfully  on 
his  return  from  heaven  and  set  up  his  kingdom  on 
earth?  This  hypothesis  seems  to  find  support  in 
those  Gospel  passages,  according  to  which  Jesus  is 
said  to  have  predicted  accurately  concerning  his  pas- 
sion and  death,  his  resurrection  and  return  in  the 
clouds  of  heaven.  But  close  scrutiny  to  discover 
whether  Jesus  really  could  have  uttered  these  say- 
ings causes  strongest  doubts.  The  threefold  repeti- 
tion of  the  prophecy  itself,  with  its  increasing  elab- 
oration of  details  (Mark  8,  31 ;  9,  31 ;  10,  33  seq.) 
leads  us  to  suppose  that  it  is  the  Evangelist  who  has 
transformed  the  knowledge  and  hopes  of  the  congre- 
gation into  a  wonderful  foreknowledge  and  foretell- 
ing of  Jesus.  Had  Jesus  actually  foretold  it,  the 
fact  would  be  incomprehensible  that  no  one  in  the 
closer  or  larger  circle  of  his  disciples  had  a  premoni- 

121 


Christian  Origins 

tion  of  his  approaching  death  and  subsequent  resur- 
rection; the  catastrophe  came  so  unexpectedly  and, 
for  the  moment,  destroyed  their  hopes  so  utterly  that 
they  lost  control  and  courage  and  scattered  to  their 
homes.  Besides,  the  Evangelists  themselves  say  that 
the  prophecies  of  the  passion  and  resurrection  of 
Jesus,  free  from  ambiguity  as  they  were  supposed 
to  be,  were  not  understood  by  the  disciples  at  any 
time;  plainly,  by  this,  they  betray  the  fact  that  in 
the  circle  of  the  disciples  nothing  was  known  of  the 
supposedly-prophesied  fate  of  Jesus  before  its  actual 
occurrence;  in  short,  that  the  prophecy  could  not 
have  been  uttered.  We  will  see  later  that  the  con- 
duct of  Jesus  during  the  last  days  at  Jerusalem  does 
not  give  the  impression  that  he  regarded  the  prospect 
of  his  death  as  an  absolute  necessity  and  divinely- 
decreed  fate.  Thus  the  hypothesis  that  Jesus  ex- 
pected a  heavenly  Messiahship  plainly  becomes  un- 
tenable. 

If  neither  the  spiritual  nor  the  heavenly  Messiah 
can  be  adhered  to,  there  seems  no  other  alternative 
than  this :  either  Jesus  did  not  wish  to  be  the  Messiah 
at  all  or  he  wished  to  be  or  become  the  Messiah  in  the 
traditional,  popular  sense.  There  is  a  third  possibil- 
ity thinkable,  a  mediatory  hypothesis,  which  is  per- 
haps best  calculated  to  explain  the  historical  course 
of  events.  In  any  event,  it  is  certain  that  Jesus  did 
not  appear  with  a  messianic  claim  from  the  begin- 
ning, but  did  appear  simply  as  the  prophet  of  the 
approaching  kingdom  of  God ;  to  prepare  its  coming 

122 


Jesus 

by  his  utterances,  he  regarded  as  his  immediate  di- 
vine mission.  For  this  he  could  disregard  the  ques- 
tion whether  God  would  be  the  only  and  immediate 
king  in  that  new  order  of  things  which  His  divine 
omnipotence  would  bring  to  pass  (as  was  expected, 
for  example,  in  the  apocryphal  "  Assumtio  Mosis  ") 
or  whether  he  would  employ  a  human  tool  and  make 
a  man  the  messianic  king;  also,  the  question  who 
that  man  would  be.  The  thought  that  he  himself 
might  be  the  divinely  selected  one,  may  have  been 
remote  from  the  beginning;  hence  his  rebuff  of  the 
messianic  greetings  which  the  sick  are  supposed  to 
have  spoken  early  in  his  career  (if  the  Gospel  re- 
ports are  trustworthy). 

When,  however,  the  masses  were  inspired  by  the 
power  of  his  instructive  and  healing  utterances,  and 
gathered  about  him,  when  the  growing  enmity  of 
the  scribes  and  Pharisees  made  it  apparent  at  the 
same  time  that  rescue  of  the  starving  and  scattered 
flock  was  not  to  be  expected  from  that  quarter,  then 
the  thought  may  have  haunted  him  more  and  more 
that  he  himself  had  been  called  to  inaugurate  the 
redeeming  kingdom  of  God  by  a  religious-social 
reformation.  When  the  Baptist's  question  "  Art 
thou  he  (the  Messiah)  who  is  to  come?"  was  put 
to  him,  Jesus  referred  to  his  successes  in  healing  sick 
bodies  and  souls  and  his  preaching  of  a  gospel  for 
the  poor.  Surely  he  had  no  wish  to  be  a  Messiah 
such  as  the  Pharisees  dreamed  of,  who  would  help 
the  Jewish  nation  to  victory  over  the  heathen  and  to 

123 


Christian  Origins 

release  from  the  Roman  rule,  but  a  Messiah  of  the 
poor,  the  miserable  and  heavy-laden,  the  pious  suf- 
ferer and  the  secluded — that  small  and  powerless 
flock  to  whom  the  heavenly  father  intended  to  give 
the  kingdom  (Luke  12,  32).  For  the  accomplish- 
ment of  this  task,  his  previous  activity  in  Galilee  no 
longer  sufficed;  in  the  capitol  city  of  Jerusalem,  at 
the  heart  of  the  hierarchy,  the  decision  must  be 
brought  about.  The  acknowledgment  of  Peter  seems 
to  have  ripened  this  decision  to  make  a  final  move; 
from  that  on,  everything  points  to  a  great  determina- 
tion, a  bold  undertaking,  a  decided  purpose.  Jesus 
did  not  move  on  to  Jerusalem  in  order  to  be  executed, 
nor  did  he  go  there  to  celebrate  the  feast;  but  he 
went  there  to  win  a  victory  over  the  hierarchy  and 
realize  the  prophetic  ideal  of  God's  kingdom  in  the 
regenerated  nation.  Naturally,  he  was  not  unmind- 
ful of  the  difficulties  and  dangers  involved,  and 
therefore  he  requires  of  his  disciples  such  determina- 
tion as  disregards  all  considerations  and  is  prepared 
to  make  any  sacrifice.  At  that  period  he  may  have 
said :  "  I  came  to  cast  fire  upon  the  earth ;  and  what 
will  I,  if  it  is  already  kindled?  But  I  have  a  bap- 
tism to  be  baptized  with :  and  how  am  I  straightened 
till  it  be  accomplished !  Think  ye  that  I  am  come  to 
give  peace  in  the  earth  ?  I  tell  you.  Nay ;  but  rather 
division."  (Luke  12,  49  seq.)  That  is  the  sincere 
language  of  a  hero  who  is  moving  toward  a  hard 
and  decisive  battle,  one  who  is  prepared  to  lose  all, 
even  his  life,  in  God's  cause;  but  because  he  is  not 

124 


Jesus 

blind  to  the  possibility  of  his  own  annihilation,  he  is 
still  far  removed  from  thinking  it  inevitable.  Jesus 
was  convinced  that  he  was  doing  God's  work ;  he  be- 
lieved in  the  wonder-working  and  omnipotent  God, 
who  could,  if  need  be,  aid  him  with  more  than  twelve 
legions  of  angels :  Why  should  he  not  be  certain  of 
the  victory  of  his  cause,  despite  such  anxieties  of  the 
human  mind,  as  Peter  had  expressed?  In  fact  the 
reports  of  Jesus'  journey  to  Jerusalem  and  his  do- 
ings there,  indicate  no  elegiac,  resigned  mood,  but  on 
the  contrary  they  display  the  heroic  trait  of  daring 
endeavor,  courageous  struggle  and  joyous  hope. 

As  the  host  of  his  enthusiastic  friends  grew  on 
the  way  to  Jerusalem,  as  through  Jericho  and  from 
there  to  Jerusalem,  the  entire  journey  became  one 
triumphal  procession  culminating  in  that  enthusiasm 
of  the  pious  pilgrim  host  which  found  vent  in  the 
outburst  of  messianic  cries  of  joy,  Jesus  withstood 
no  longer ;  when  his  opponents  called  his  attention  to 
the  suspicious  nature  of  these  cries,  he  is  said  to  have 
answered :  "If  these  shall  hold  their  peace,  the 
stones  will  cry  out."  (Luke  19,  40.)  He  considered 
the  enthusiasm  of  the  masses  to  be  an  elemental 
force,  which  no  human  violence  could  check.  On  the 
next  day,  he  visited  the  temple;  when  he  saw  the 
busy  activity  of  the  dealers  in  sacrificial  animals  and 
Jewish  coins  overrunning  the  outer  court,  he  drove 
them  out  with  their  wares.  This  business  was  con- 
nected with  the  sacrificial  service  and  therefore 
Jesus'  reformatory  action  seemed  to  be  an  attack 

125 


Christian  Origins 

on  the  sacrificial  service  itself,  and  indirectly  on  the 
hierarchs,  who  derived  their  income  from  and  based 
their  social  position  of  power  on  the  sacrificial  ser- 
vice. After  opening  the  battle  thus,  Jesus  continued 
it  during  the  following  days  in  addresses  to  the  peo- 
ple. With  fiery  words,  he  reads  the  register  of  their 
sins  to  the  scribes  and  the  Pharisees, — hypocritical 
commerce  with  religion,  ambition  and  greed,  agita- 
torial  proselytizing  which  only  makes  men  more 
wicked,  lying  casuistry,  straining  out  gnats  and  swal- 
lowing camels,  mania  for  outward  cleansing  and  in- 
ward hypocrisy  and  iniquity,  worship  of  the  prophets' 
sepulchres  and  hatred  of  their  spirit.  In  the  parable 
of  the  faithless  husbandman  (Mark  12,  12  seq.)  the 
hierarchs  perceived  that  he  set  the  prospect  of  the 
approaching  judgment  before  them,  in  that  God 
would  take  his  vineyard,  the  stewardship  of  his  peo- 
ple, and  give  it  to  "  others,"  which  meant,  naturally. 
to  Jesus  and  his  friends  whom  God  had  appointed 
for  the  kingdom.  (Cp.  Luke  12,  32 ;  22,  29.)  From 
that  time  on,  the  hierarchs  sought  to  remove  the  un- 
comfortable reformer,  but  fearing  the  people  who 
were  much  attached  to  him,  they  dared  not  attack 
him  openly.  (Mark  12,  12-37.)  They  thought  it 
safer  to  seize  him  in  the  dead  of  night  and  deliver 
him  over  to  the  Roman  governor  as  a  messianic  pre- 
tender and  public  agitator;  in  which  case,  they  well 
knew,  the  governor  would  make  short  work  of 
him. 

Jesus  knew  the  deadly  enmity  of  the  hierarchs 

126 


Jesus 

and  prepared  himself  for  the  worst;  but  he  never 
thought  of  a  criminal  trial  before  his  Roman  su- 
periors. He  was  conscious  of  his  innocence  in  that 
direction  because  he  had  commanded  the  separation 
of  politics  and  religion  and  the  recognition  of  the 
Imperial  authority.  (Mark  12,  17.)  One  refer- 
ence in  the  Gospel  of  Luke  leads  to  the  highly  prob- 
able conclusion  that  he  scented  danger  from  an- 
other quarter;  in  the  Life-of-Jesus  romances,  this 
reference  is  regularly  overlooked,  but  it  is  of  great 
importance  to  the  historian.  While  Jesus  was  cele- 
brating the  Passover  meal  with  his  disciples  on  the 
evening  of  the  day  before  his  death,  he  commanded 
them  urgently  to  procure  swords  at  any  price,  even 
if  they  had  to  sell  their  cloaks  to  do  so,  and  when 
they  answered  that  there  were  two  swords  at  hand, 
he  said :  it  is  enough  (Luke  22,  36-38) .  Such  words 
cannot  be  interpreted  allegorically  without  doing 
them  great  violence ;  literally  accepted,  they  can  mean 
only  one  thing,  that  Jesus  considered  weapons  ur- 
gently needed  for  defense  in  case  of  murderous  at- 
tack by  hired  assassins.  What  thought  could  be 
closer  than  that  the  hierarchs  would  seek  to  remove 
him  silently  by  assassination,  inasmuch  as  criminal 
cases  were  no  longer  in  their  jurisdiction  since  the 
Roman  occupation?  Jesus  wanted  to  be  ready  for 
such  an  attack  and  two  swords  sufficed  for  the  pur- 
pose. When,  later,  in  the  garden  of  Gethsemane,  he 
saw  himself  surrounded  by  a  host  of  the  servitors  of 
the  authorities  and  not  by  assassins,  he  forbade  all 

127 


Christian  Origins 

further  opposition  on  the  part  of  the  disciples  (Luke 
22,  50).  Luke's  reference  to  the  purchase  of  the 
swords  is  so  much  the  more  to  be  considered  a  sure 
historical  recollection  because  it  stands  in  the  most 
glaring  contrast  to  that  later  church-view  of  Jesus' 
death,  which  colors  the  other  gospel  descriptions. 
If  Jesus  feared  assassination  on  the  last  evening  of 
his  life  and  prepared  to  meet  it  with  arms,  he  could 
never  have  known  or  predicted  his  death  on  the 
cross;  these  predictions  could  only  have  been  put 
into  his  mouth  subsequently. 

The  same  holds  good  of  the  Gospel  passage  by 
which  Jesus  is  supposed  to  have  made  bread  and 
wine  at  the  last  supper,  the  symbols  of  his  dead  body 
and  his  flowing  blood.  Later  on,  we  will  see  that 
these  words  originated  in  the  Apostle  Paul's  mystical 
teaching  of  the  sacrificial  death  of  Christ  and  its 
sacramental  celebration  in  the  Communion — a  teach- 
ing unknown  to  the  oldest  congregation  and  there- 
fore not  heard  by  them  from  Jesus'  lips.  The  words 
spoken  at  the  Last  Supper,  which  actually  belonged 
to  the  original  tradition,  do  not  breathe  the  mood 
of  separation  or  premonition  of  death ;  on  the  con- 
trary, they  are  full  of  joyous  hope  of  victory.  Thus, 
the  words  about  drinking  wine  in  the  kingdom  of 
the  father  after  it  had  come,  and  the  promise  to  the 
disciples  that  under  the  kingship  of  Jesus  they  will 
sit  at  his  table  and  judge  the  twelve  tribes  of  Israel. 
(Luke  22,  18 ;  22,  28  seq.)  It  is  easily  possible  that 
this  joyous  mood  could  give  way  to  more  sombre 

128 


Jesus 

thoughts  at  this  critical  juncture;  if  the  text  of  the 
prayer  which  Jesus  uttered  in  the  soHtude  of  the 
garden  of  Gethsemane  is  correctly  handed  down  to 
us,  then  it  shows  that  in  that  hour  Jesus'  soul  was 
suffused  with  an  anxious  premonition ;  yet  his  sway- 
ing between  fear  and  hope  is  another  sign  that  the 
thought  of  his  death  as  an  absolute  necessity  was 
still  remote.  We  may  well  assume  that  his  trust  in 
that  God,  who  can  save  his  own  by  miracles  and 
angels,  was  his  mainstay  even  during  the  disgrace 
and  maltreatment  of  the  last  day :  not  until  he  was 
on  the  cross  did  the  dying  man  lose  hope ;  not  until 
life  was  ebbing,  did  he  break  forth  in  the  lament: 
"My  God,  why  hast  thou  forsaken  me?" 

To  this  heartrending  tragedy  as  his  life's  close, 
one  thought  alone  can  reconcile  us — that  it  was  the 
inevitable,  providential  means  of  entrance  into  a 
higher  life.  The  grain  of  wheat  must  fall  to  earth 
and  die  in  order  to  bring  forth  rich  fruit ;  the  Jewish 
Messiah,  the  reformer  of  his  people,  had  to  disap- 
pear so  that  "  the  Christ  after  the  spirit  "  could  live 
in  the  faith  of  his  congregation  to  be — to  make  way 
for  him  who  was  in  truth  to  become  the  world  re- 
deemer and  the  king  of  the  realm.  His  limitations 
of  age  and  nation,  the  messianic-apocalyptic  form  of 
his  thought  and  activity,  they  had  to  succumb  in  the 
unequal  struggle  with  the  powers  of  the  earth;  but 
the  universal,  spiritual  kernel  of  his  life  work,  the 
ideal  of  the  kingdom  of  that  God  who  is  the  good 
will  and  redeeming  love  in  the  hearts  of  his  children 

129 


Christian  Origins 

and  in  the  life  of  his  realm — that  remained  and 
marched  triumphantly  across  the  world,  so  that  even 
to-day  it  is  the  saving  and  educating  force  which 
gives  eternal  content  and  value  to  human  life  in  the 
individual  and  the  race. 


130 


THE  MESSIANIC  CONGREGATION 


THE  MESSIANIC  CONGREGATION 

The  death  of  Jesus  seems  to  have  destroyed  all 
the  hopes  which  the  disciples  had  centred  in  him. 
The  blow  had  struck  them  so  unexpectedly  that  they 
fled  precipitately  after  his  arrest  and  Peter  dis- 
claimed him  in  cowardly  fashion.  Not  one  of  them 
was  present  at  the  cross ;  only  a  few  of  the  faithful 
women  at  a  distance  watched  the  sad  end.  Some 
time  later  the  disciples,  who  had  been  discouraged 
shortly  before,  appeared  publicly  before  the  people 
as  inspired  witnesses  of  the  resurrection  and  the 
elevation  of  Jesus  to  heavenly  Messiahhood.  What 
had  brought  about  this  great  revulsion?  What  had 
they  experienced  in  the  meantime,  strong  enough 
to  lift  their  drooping  spirits,  to  fan  into  flame  their 
disappearing  hopes,  so  strong  that  they  believed  in 
Jesus  as  the  Messiah  more  confidently  than  ever  and 
gave  public  testimony  to  their  belief?  At  this  de- 
cisive point,  the  historical  method  has  least  right  to 
withdraw  from  a  critical  examination  of  the  tradi- 
tional stories  and  must  bring  to  light  the  probable 
sequence  of  events  on  the  strength  of  the  few  but 
certain  facts.  In  such  case,  more  cannot  be  expected 
of  historical  research,  than  such  an  explanation  of 
the  procedure  as  comports  with  the  analogy  of  other 
human  experience  and  is  therefore  thinkable  and 
probable. 

133 


Christian  Origins 

Every  careful  reader  of  the  Gospels  must  see  that 
the  stories  of  the  disciples'  Easter  experiences  are  so 
contradictory  that  they  afford  no  decided,  clear  no- 
tion. No  man  can  gain  any  idea  of  a  resurrected 
body  which  is  both  entirely  material,  tangible  like 
any  earthly  body  and  can  eat,  and  then  again  seems 
to  be  of  such  an  unearthly  nature  that  it  can  go 
through  locked  doors,  suddenly  appear  and  then  dis- 
appear and  then  be  lifted  up  to  heaven.  Equally 
contradictory  are  the  Gospel  stories  about  the  locality 
in  which  it  appeared ;  in  Mark,  the  disciples  are  di- 
rected to  Galilee  in  order  to  see  the  resurrected  one 
there:  so,  too,  in  Matthew,  where  the  story  of  the 
appearance  on  the  mountain  in  Galilee  is  actually 
narrated,  but  not  until  after  a  similar  story  had  been 
reported  about  the  appearance  to  the  two  Marys  on 
the  home- journey  from  the  tomb  to  the  city.  Luke, 
however,  only  tells  of  appearances  on  the  Emmaus 
road  near  Jerusalem  and  then  to  the  assembled  dis- 
ciples at  Jerusalem ;  not  only  that  he  knows  nothing 
of  a  Galilean  appearance,  but  he  precluded  its  pos- 
sibility, by  having  the  disciples  directed  to  wait  at 
Jerusalem  until  the  pouring  out  of  the  holy  spirit 
on  Pentecost.  John  agrees  with  Luke  in  telling  of 
appearances  at  Jerusalem  and  with  Matthew  in  tell- 
ing of  one  before  Mary  at  the  grave ;  finally,  in  the 
supplementary  chapter,  he  tells  of  an  appearance  to 
some  of  the  disciples  at  the  sea  of  Genesareth,  no- 
where else  reported.  Paul  knows  nothing  of  the 
women's  discovery  of  an  empty  grave  and  the  ap- 

134 


The  Messianic  Congregation 

pearance  of  an  angel  or  of  Christ,  which  the  Evan- 
geHsts  make  much  of;  but  he  makes  out  a  series  of 
appearances  to  Kephas,  the  twelve  and  more  than 
five  hundred  brothers,  to  Jacobus,  the  entire  group 
of  Apostles  and  finally  to  Paul  himself.  Such  is  the 
oldest  report,  but  it  does  not  tally  with  any  of  the 
later  evangelical  reports.  This  suffices  to  show  how 
little  the  oldest  congregation  knew  about  the  mat- 
ter; the  traditions  handed  down  to  us  are  discon- 
nected and  inharmonious  legends,  created  by  poetic 
imagination  and  apologetic  reflection.  Will  we  suc- 
ceed in  working  through  these  superimposed  layers 
of  legend  to  the  historical  foundation  of  actual  facts  ? 
Perhaps  we  may  hope  to  do  so  by  noting  certain 
suggestions  given  by  the  oldest  witnesses,  Paul  and 
Mark,  independently  of  one  another  and  yet  in  agree- 
ment. Mark  makes  Jesus  prophesy  ( 14,  2.'j^\  "  All 
ye  shall  be  offended :  for  it  is  written,  I  will  smite 
the  shepherd,  and  the  sheep  will  be  scattered  abroad. 
Howbeit,  after  I  am  raised  up,  I  will  go  before  you 
into  Galilee."  To  this,  then,  he  makes  the  angel  at 
the  grave  refer  in  his  direction  to  the  women;  they 
should  go  and  tell  his  disciples  and  especially  Peter 
that  Jesus  goeth  before  them  into  Galilee,  there  shall 
they  see  him,  as  he  had  said  previously  to  them  (16, 
7).  This  prophecy  subsequently  attributed  to  Jesus 
leads  to  a  certain  conclusion  regarding  the  actual 
course  of  events,  immediately  after  Jesus'  death. 
The  disciples  had  become  confused  in  their  faith, 
they  were  scattered  and  returned  to  their  Galilean 

135 


Christian  Origins 

homes;  there  they  saw  the  crucified  Jesus  again  for 
the  first  time  as  a  Hving  man,  and  among  them  Peter 
saw  him  first.  Granted  that  we  find  this  to  be  the 
oldest  historical  tradition,  then  it  follows  that  all  the 
stories  about  the  appearances  of  the  resurrected  Jesus 
at  or  near  Jerusalem  on  Easter  Sunday  are  to  be 
considered  later  legends,  lacking  all  historical  basis ; 
with  them  goes  the  story  of  the  finding  of  the  empty 
grave  and,  therewith,  the  bodily  emergence  of  Jesus 
from  the  grave.  Another  reflection,  suggested  by 
Paul,  leads  to  the  same  conclusion.  When  he  places 
the  Christ  appearance  of  his  own  experience  (I  Cor. 
15,  8)  on  a  level  with  all  the  other  appearances,  he 
naturally  presupposes  the  similarity  of  these  appear- 
ances and  justifies  us  in  judging  the  previous  ones 
to  have  been  similar  in  nature  to  his  own.  Now, 
it  is  certain  that  that  which  Paul  was  convinced 
that  he  had  seen  on  the  way  to  Damascus  was  not 
Christ  in  the  flesh  but  Christ  in  the  spirit — a  celestial 
being  of  spirit  or  light,  similar  in  nature  to  their 
thought  of  angels.  Such  a  supernatural  being  can- 
not be  the  object  of  sense  perception,  but  of  an 
inner  seeing,  the  vision  or  hallucination  of  a  state 
of  ecstasy,  which  is  not  conjured  up  by  any  present, 
perceivable  object,  but  is  the  externalized  mirroring 
of  an  inner  state  of  the  soul,  an  "  objectivation  "  of 
its  own  consciousness.  This  agrees  with  Paul's  say- 
ing, that  God  revealed  his  Son  in  him,  that  the  light 
shone  in  his  heart,  "  to  give  the  light  of  the  knowl- 
edge of  the  glory  of  God  in  the  face  of  Jesus  Christ  " 

136 


The  Messianic  Congregation 

(Gal.  I,  i6;  II  Cor.  4,  6)  and  with  Paul's  glorying 
in  "  the  visions  and  the  revelations  "  wherein  he 
had  heard  the  inexpressible  without  the  mediation 
of  the  physical  senses  (II  Cor.  12,  i,  seq.).  There- 
fore, we  will  have  to  regard  the  first  appear- 
ance of  Christ  which  Peter  experienced  in  the  same 
way  as  that  of  Paul  who  saw  the  celestial  light-ap- 
pearance of  Christ  in  a  sudden  ecstatic  vision  on  the 
way  to  Damascus — a  physical  experience,  in  no 
wise  an  incomprehensible  miracle,  but  psychologic- 
ally conceivable  according  to  many  analogous  ex- 
periences in  all  ages. 

In  the  legends  of  saints  and  martyrs  it  is  a  regu- 
larly-recurring feature  that  the  saint,  shortly  after 
his  death,  reappears  in  dreams  and  in  waking  hours 
(ecstasies)  and  bids  his  people  be  of  good  cheer, 
adding  words  of  consolation  and  instruction :  The 
longing  love  loses  itself  completely  in  memories  and 
the  precious  image  of  the  departed  presents  itself  so 
vividly,  that,  in  the  supreme  moment  of  ecstatic 
enthusiasm,  faith  believes  itself  face  to  face  with  the 
living.  When  we  consider  Peter's  nature,  a  lively 
temperament,  easily  swayed  by  sudden  and  momen- 
tary impulses  of  emotion,  it  becomes  easy  to  con- 
ceive that  he  should  be  the  first  to  go  through  this 
experience.  Following  other  analogies,  it  is  also 
easy  to  understand  that  this  experience  of  inspired 
vision  did  not  confine  itself  to  Peter,  but  repeated 
itself  soon  for  the  other  disciples  and,  finally,  for 
assemblages  of  believers.      It  is  a  well-known  fact 

137 


Christian  Origins 

of  experience  that  there  is  a  contagion  in  the  condi- 
tion of  high  grades  of  excited  psychical  Hfe,  especi- 
ally of  religious  enthusiasm  and  ecstasy  and  that 
such  conditions  overpower  entire  assemblages  with 
an  elemental  force.  Many  succumb  to  the  sugges- 
tion of  individuals  to  such  an  extent  that  thev 
actually  repeat  the  experience;  others,  less  suscepti- 
ble, imagine,  at  least,  that  they  see  and  hear  the 
thing  suggested ;  dull  and  sober  participants  are  so 
carried  away  by  the  enthusiasm  of  the  mass  that 
faith  furnishes  what  their  own  vision  fails  to  supply. 

The  historical  basis  of  the  disciples'  belief  in  the 
resurrection  we  find  in  the  ecstatic  visionary  ex- 
periences emanating  from  an  individual  and  soon 
convincing  all;  in  these  experiences  they  be- 
lieved that  they  saw  the  crucified  master  alive  and 
raised  to  heavenly  glory.  At  home  in  the  world  of 
the  miraculous,  the  imagination  wove  the  garment 
to  clothe  that  which  was  moving  and  suffusing  the 
soul.  At  bottom,  the  moving  force  of  the  resurrec- 
tion of  Jesus  in  their  faith  was  nothing  more  than 
the  ineffaceable  impression  which  one  person  had 
made  upon  them ;  their  love  and  their  confidence  in 
him  were  stronger  than  death.  This  miracle  of  love 
and  not  a  miracle  of  omnipotence  was  the  founda- 
tion of  the  resurrection-belief  in  the  early-congre- 
gation. 

Therefore  it  did  not  stop  at  passing  emotions, 
but  the  newly-awakened,  inspired  belief  compelled 
action;     the    disciples    recognized    their    life-task. 

138 


The  Messianic  Congregation 

They  were  to  proclaim  to  their  compatriots  that 
Jesus  of  Nazareth,  whom  they  had  deUvered  up  to 
their  enemies,  was  the  Messiah ;  that  God  had  shown 
it  the  more  by  the  resurrection  of  Jesus  and  his  as- 
cension to  heaven  and  that  Jesus  would  soon  return 
to  take  up  his  messianic  government  of  earth.  In  a 
certain  sense,  their  teachings  were  the  continuation 
of  Jesus'  announcement  of  the  kingdom,  but  with 
the  important  difference,  that  the  belief  in  the  eleva- 
tion of  Jesus  to  the  heavenly  Messiahship  was  their 
point  of  departure  and  mainstay;  the  teaching  that 
Jesus,  the  man,  was  resurrected  and  would  return 
took  precedence  over  the  teaching  of  the  coming 
kingdom,  and  the  miraculous  character  of  the  mes- 
sianic king  expected  from  heaven,  lifted  the  idea  of 
his  kingdom  to  a  higher  level ;  therewith,  the  broad- 
ening of  the  national  limitation  and  the  spiritualiza- 
tion  of  the  earthly  character  of  the  kingdom  was  at 
least  prepared  at  the  outset  of  the  apostolic  teaching, 
even  if,  as  is  natural,  it  was  not  at  once  completed. 

Now  that  the  teaching  of  the  Jesus  who  had  been 
resurrected  and  had  become  the  heavenly  Messiah, 
was  the  appeal  made  to  the  people,  and  they  could 
not  prove  anything  of  the  life  of  the  crucified  one  of 
their  own  knowledge,  other  proofs  had  to  be  sought. 
They  were  found  in  the  passages  of  the  Old  Testa- 
ment which  spoke  of  the  rescue  of  the  righteous 
from  the  pangs  of  death,  whereby  the  protection 
from  death  (which  was  really  meant)  could  easily 
be   constructed   to   mean    redemption    from    death 

139 


Christian  Origins 

through  resurrection,  and  then  these  could  be  inter- 
preted as  prophecy  of  the  Messiah  Jesus  (so  Ps. 
i6,  lo;  86,  13;  Cp.  Acts  2,  27;  13,  35).  Particu- 
larly favorable  for  the  apologetic  purpose  of  the 
apostolic  teaching  was  that  passage  in  the  second 
Isaiah  which  describes  the  patient  suffering  of  the 
servant  of  God,  who  is  carried  off,  not  because  of 
his  own  guilt,  but  by  reason  of  the  wickedness  of  his 
people ;  after  laying  down  his  own  life  as  a  sacrifice, 
he  will  see  his  offspring,  live  long  and  lead  God's 
cause  to  victory.  (Isaiah  53.)  The  application  of 
this  passage  to  the  martyrdom  and  the  renewed  life 
of  Jesus  was  apparent  to  the  apostles  and  offered 
them  a  splendid  means  of  using  prophetic  revelation 
as  a  support  of  the  thought,  previously  unknown  to 
Judaism,  of  a  Messiah  who  had  been  elevated  to 
heaven  through  death  and  resurrection.  That  this 
resurrected  Jesus  was  enthroned  by  the  side  of  God 
in  heaven  until  his  return,  could  be  proven  by  the 
one  hundred  and  tenth  Psalm  in  which  God  says  tc 
his  anointed :  "  Sit  thou  at  my  right  hand  until  I 
make  thine  enemies  thy  footstool."  The  expecta- 
tion of  the  early  return  of  Jesus  from  heaven  could 
be  based  on  the  prophecy  of  Daniel  that  a  son  of 
man  would  come  before  God  on  the  cloud  of  heaven 
and  would  be  appointed  to  rule  over  the  kingdom 
of  the  holy.  (Daniel  7,  13.)  This  passage  was 
especially  important  to  the  early-congregation, 
because  they  looked  upon  it  as  containing  in  sub- 
stance the  entire  programme  of  their  new  trans- 


The  Messianic  Congregation 

cendental,  messianic  belief  and  their  hope  of  the 
return.  Hence,  such  expressions  were  soon  attrib- 
uted to  Jesus  himself;  at  the  hearing  before  the 
High-priest  (at  which  certainly  none  of  his  follow- 
ers could  have  been  present  to  serve  as  a  trustworthy 
ear  witness)  Jesus  is  supposed  to  have  said :  "  and 
ye  shall  see  the  son  of  man  sitting  on  the  right 
hand  of  power  and  coming  with  the  clouds  of 
heaven."  (Mark  14,  62.)  After  it  had  become 
usual  to  designate  Jesus,  the  Messiah  who  was  to 
return  from  heaven,  by  the  apocalyptical  name  "  the 
son  of  man,"  the  expression  was  employed  in  those 
passages  where  the  Jesus  of  earth  is  made  to 
prophesy  his  approaching  passion  and  resurrection 
(Mark  8,  31,  etc.)  ;  finally,  this  expression  ac- 
quired the  meaning  of  the  standing  messianic  self- 
designation  of  Jesus,  which  is  attributed  to  him 
regularly  in  the  Gospels  from  the  beginning,  without 
reference  to  his  resurrection  or  return;  this  corre- 
sponds to  the  (naturally  unhistorical)  presupposi- 
tion that  he  announced  himself  from  the  beginning 
as  the  Messiah. 

Altogether  the  religious  reflection  of  the  early- 
Christian  congregation  moved  entirely  in  the  direc- 
tion of  interpreting  and  arranging  the  preceding 
earth-life  of  Jesus  in  the  new  light  of  the  newly- 
won  belief  in  the  heavenly  Messiahship  of  Jesus. 
In  that  life  they  sought  signs  and  guarantees  of  his 
future  appearance  in  messianic  glory.  Whatever 
was  contradictory  to  this  in  the  past,  such  as  passion, 

I  141  )»•< 


Christian  Origins 

disgrace  and  death,  that  was  subjected  to  a  con- 
ciliatory and  satisfying  interpretation  from  the 
standpoint  of  the  beUef  in  his  return.  This  passion 
was  not  to  be  regarded  as  an  unexpected  fate, 
destroying  the  messianic  hopes,  but  as  something 
known  of  Jesus  long  before,  something  foretold 
as  far  back  as  the  prophets  and  the  Psalmists. 
Throughout  the  Old  Testament  they  sought  and 
found  exemplars  and  prophecies  of  the  happenings 
to  the  Messiah,  Jesus.  The  story  of  his  passion,  in 
particular,  was  worked  over  from  this  viewpoint; 
for  each  feature,  some  prophetic  example  was  sought 
in  the  fate  of  some  righteous  sufferer;  again,  on 
the  strength  of  these  supposed  prophecies,  new  fea- 
tures would  be  added  to  the  story,  so  as  to  make 
it  plastic  and  edificatory.  The  legend-making 
power  of  the  religious  imagination  was  actively  en- 
gaged on  other  stories  beside  that  of  the  passion. 
The  expected  miracle  of  the  appearance  of  the 
heavenly  Messiah  Jesus  gave  a  reflex  glory  to  the 
life  of  the  prophet  Jesus  and  filled  the  gaps  of 
historical  knowledge  with  the  pictures  of  pious 
poetry.  One  presupposition  set  the  standard :  the 
Messiah  had  performed  and  surpassed  in  perform- 
ance all  the  wonderful  deeds  and  experiences  which 
the  Old  Testament  narrated  of  Moses  and  Elijah 
and  its  great  men  of  God.  Not  alone  sober  reflec- 
tion, but  prophetic  inspiration,  also,  reading  the  Old 
Testament  in  the  light  of  its  fulfillment  by  the  Mes- 
siah Jesus,  created  these  new  legends,  modeling  them 

142 


The  Messianic  Congregation 

after  the  old  ones.  At  the  same  time,  apologetic 
motives  influenced  the  Gospel  tradition.  Faith 
sought  to  see  in  the  earth-life  of  Jesus  the  model 
and  guarantee  of  that  which  the  ennobled  Christ 
was  to  mean  in  the  present  and  in  the  future:  he 
who  was  to  return  as  king  and  judge,  faith  pre- 
supposed, must  have  proven  himself  by  miraculous 
deeds  to  be  lord  over  nature  during  his  sojourn  on 
earth,  he  must  have  been  the  conqueror  of  demons 
and  the  lawgiver  of  the  new  people  of  God;  by 
divine  proclamations,  he  must  have  established  the 
fact  that  he  was  the  son  of  God,  gifted  with  the 
miraculous  power  of  spirit.  So  the  story  of  the 
transfiguration  of  Jesus  on  the  mountain  (accord- 
ing to  its  original  sense,  clearly  recognizable  in 
Mark)  is  a  symbolic  presentation  of  the  glorification 
of  Jesus  through  his  resurrection  and  at  the  same 
time  an  imitation  of  the  experience  of  Moses  on 
the  mountain  where  the  Law  was  given ;  as  Moses' 
countenance  shone  with  the  reflected  light  of  God, 
so  Jesus,  at  the  transfiguration,  was  changed  into 
a  figure  of  light,  which  was  his  permanently  after 
the  resurrection;  in  the  presence  of  Moses  and 
Elijah,  the  representatives  of  Law  and  Prophecy,  the 
divine  voice  of  Heaven  declared  Jesus  to  be  the 
beloved  Son  to  whom  all  were  to  hearken  thence- 
forward. This  displays  the  oldest  form  of  the 
faith  in  Christ,  according  to  which  the  resurrection 
and  the  ascension  to  the  heavenly  world  of  light 
"  made  both  Lord  and  Christ  this  Jesus  whom  ye 

X43 


Christian  Origins 

crucified."  (Acts  2,  36.)  Soon  came  the  desire  to 
see  the  Son  of  God  and  the  Messiah  not  only  in  the 
ascended  but  even  in  the  Jesus  of  earth ;  for,  it  was 
thought,  how  could  such  great  miracles  be  wrought 
if  it  had  not  been  that  **  God  anointed  him  with 
the  Holy  Ghost  and  with  power"?  (Acts  10,  38.) 
Then  the  question,  when  could  that  have  happened  ? 
Was  it  not  before  he  took  up  his  public  work? 
Thus  the  baptism  by  John  seemed  most  fitting  for 
the  equipment  of  Jesus  with  the  messianic  spirit. 
But  how  did  that  happen  ?  Once,  so  ran  the  sacred 
legend,  the  spirit  rested,  brooding  upon  the  waters 
of  chaos  before  creation,  "  like  a  dove  "  the  Rabbis 
said:  thus,  at  the  creation  of  the  new  world,  the 
spirit  is  made  to  descend  again  on  Jesus  in  the  shape 
of  a  dove,  thenceforth  to  dwell  in  him  as  the  all- 
regenerating  principle.  A  legend  preserved  in  an 
extra-canonical  gospel  tells  of  a  fiery  appearance  in 
the  Jordan,  similar  to  the  fiery  appearance  at  the 
outpouring  of  the  Holy  Ghost  on  Pentecost.  Ac- 
companying this  descent  of  the  spirit  was  a  heavenly 
voice  which  originally  in  all  probability  (according 
to  an  old  version)  uttered  the  words  of  the  second 
Psalm :  "  Thou  art  my  son,  this  day  have  I 
begotten  thee !" — wherewith  the  miraculous  baptism 
is  explained  as  the  solemn  initiation  of  Jesus  as  the 
Son  of  God  and  the  spirit-laden  Messiah. 

For  a  long  period,  this  was  the  prevailing  idea, 
until  it  was  superseded  by  the  later  legend  of  the 
supernatural  birth  of  Jesus,  according  to  which  he 

144 


The  Messianic  Congregation 

did  not  become  the  son  of  God  during  the  course 
of  his  Hfe  on  earth,  but  is  said  to  have  been  born 
so,  in  the  actual,  physical  sense.  We  will  return 
later  to  this  latest  form  of  the  early-Christian  belief 
in  Christ,  and  show  the  heathen  models  which  in- 
fluenced its  construction. 

Thus  the  seeds  of  future  Christ-belief  of  the 
church  were  sown  in  the  early-congregation;  of 
course,  they  were  not  dogmatic  doctrines  but  legends 
full  of  meaning,  children  of  faith,  of  prophetic  intui- 
tion and  poetizing  imagination.  In  form  and  con- 
tent, these  poems  were  still  closely  related  to  the 
popular  idea  of  the  Jewish  messianic  expectation. 
The  Jews  themselves  hoped  for  the  coming  of  a 
Messiah  who  was  to  regenerate  God's  people;  and 
in  the  Jewish  apocalypses  the  Messiah  was  set  forth, 
sometimes  at  least,  as  a  supermundane  being  de- 
scended from  the  heavenly  heights.  At  first,  the 
believers  in  Jesus  differed  from  the  other  Jews  only 
in  this,  that  they  regarded  their  master,  whom  the 
national  leaders  had  rejected  and  the  Roman  authori- 
ties had  crucified,  as  the  Messiah  awaited  from 
Heaven.  Herein,  however,  lay  the  beginning  of  a 
very  important  distinction.  By  combining  the 
messianic  idea  with  the  person  of  the  crucified 
Jesus,  that  idea  acquired  a  new  content ;  its  national- 
Jewish  nature  gave  way  to  the  human  ethical  char- 
acter of  the  merciful  friend  of  the  weary  and  the 
heavy  laden,  the  innocent,  persecuted  sufferer  whose 
passion  led  to  his  glory.     The  thought  of  a  "  suffer- 

145 


Christian  Origins 

ing  Messiah,"  unknown  until  then  in  Judaism, 
brought  an  entirely  new  tone  into  the  religious  mood 
and  mode  of  thinking.  Besides,  the  time  of  the 
Messiah's  arrival  into  glory,  for  which  the  resurrec- 
tion seemed  to  be  the  prologue  and  the  guarantee, 
was  made  the  immediate  future  and  became  an 
object  of  most  ardent  hopes;  the  rejection  of  the 
present,  disintegrating  world  and  the  yearning  ex- 
pectation of  the  coming  new  world  which  was  to 
bring  release  from  all  present  oppression  in  its  train 
— to  far  greater  extent  than  ever,  this  became  the 
fundamental  note  of  pious  faith. 

If  we  ask,  whether  there  was  Christianity  in  this 
old  circle  of  disciples,  the  answer  may  be  both  Yes 
and  No.  It  was  present  insofar  as  the  congregation 
felt  itself  bound  by  the  belief  in  Jesus  as  the  Lord 
and  Christ,  the  coming  judge  and  redeemer,  who 
would  bring  to  pass  the  promised  kingdom  of  God 
in  his  regenerated  people  and  insofar  as  they  strove 
to  imitate  the  moral  example  of  the  master  in  their 
fraternal,  communal  life.  On  the  other  hand,  it 
must  not  be  overlooked,  that  this  brotherhood  of 
Jesus  was  far  removed  from  a  separation  from 
Judaism  as  a  new  and  peculiar  religious  community, 
and  did  not  think  of  securing  heathen  followers. 
They  desired,  rather,  to  be  nothing  more  than  the 
Messiah-believing  nucleus  of  the  Jewish  people; 
they  hoped  to  convert  the  whole  nation  to  whom  the 
promise  belonged  and  they  felt  themselves  bound  by 
the  Mosaic  Law  as  the  basis  of  the  Jewish  religion. 

146 


The  Messianic  Congregation 

According  to  the  description  in  the  Acts,  undoubt- 
edly correct,  the  early-congregation  moved  entirely 
in  the  forms  of  Jewish  piety,  from  which  they  felt 
that  neither  the  words  nor  the  example  of  Jesus 
released  them.  The  comrades  of  the  messianic 
brotherhood  visited  the  Temple,  kept  the  hours  of 
prayer,  the  festivals  and  fast  days,  the  ritual  laws, 
the  customary  oaths — all  of  this  with  a  conscien- 
tiousness, which  placed  their  ceremonial  piety  be- 
yond doubt  even  in  the  eyes  of  the  Jewish  people. 
Jacobus,  the  brother  of  the  master,  who  was  espe- 
cially observant  and  survived  in  the  congregation 
under  the  name  of  "  the  righteous  "  called  the 
Jewish-Christians  "zealous  of  the  law"  (Acts  21, 
20),  which  means  Jews  most  strict  in  their  observ- 
ance. They  had  learned  from  Jesus  to  put  the 
moral  above  the  ceremonial,  but  from  that  point  to 
an  insight  into  the  lack  of  religious  meaning  of  the 
Jewish  ceremonial  Law  and  even  to  the  practical 
departure  from  it,  was  a  long  journey  which  Jesus 
never  had  induced  the  disciples  to  undertake.  There 
was  no  idea  of  ecclesiastical  organization  in  the 
messianic  congregation:  how  could  there  be  any 
thought  of  creating  the  machinery  of  a  church  for 
the  short  period  until  the  return  of  the  master? 
Baptism  and  communion  were  not  by  any  means  acts 
of  worship  and  signs  of  differentiation  in  the  con- 
gregation believing  in  Christ,  in  the  sense  which 
they  later  assumed.  Baptism  w^as  a  symbolical  act 
of  purification  and  dedication  which  differed  from 

147 


Christian  Origins 

the  baptism  of  John's  disciples  only  by  the  acknowl- 
edgment of  Jesus  ;  there  was  nothing  in  it  which 
loosened  the  tie  to  Judaism.  The  early  Christian 
love-feast  differed  from  those  of  the  Essenes  and 
similar  religious  associations  only  by  the  fact,  that 
they  felt  fraternally  bound  by  the  faith  in  Jesus  and 
the  imitation  of  his  love. 

The  most  peculiar  feature  of  the  early-congrega- 
tion, their  so-called  common  ownership  of  property 
reminds  one  of  the  Essenes;  it  was  not  so  rigidly 
carried  out  as  in  the  latter  Order,  for,  according  to 
the  Acts,  no  one  was  in  duty  bound  to  turn  over 
all  his  possessions  to  the  congregation;  probably,  it 
extended  so  far  as  to  care  for  the  regular  support  of 
the  poorer  brethren  out  of  a  common  treasury  and 
especially  for  the  common  meal  of  the  brothers. 
However,  this  solidarity  of  a  brotherly  service  of 
love  and  this  religiously-inspired  socialism  of  the 
early-congregation  were  of  greatest  importance:  to 
a  certain  extent,  it  was  the  beginning  of  the  practi- 
cal realization  of  the  ideal  of  the  redeeming  king- 
dom of  God,  which  the  naive  faith  expected  would 
appear  fully  in  the  miraculous  appearance  of  the  Son 
of  Man  on  the  clouds  of  Heaven. 

In  the  small  and  quiet  circle  of  the  brotherhood, 
gathered  about  the  name  of  Jesus,  there  were,  in- 
deed, present  the  living  seeds  of  a  religious  and  moral 
world  regeneration.  In  order  to  develop  freely  and 
powerfully,  they  had  to  be  released  from  the  national 
and  legal  fetters  of  Judaism.     For  this  accomplish- 

148 


The  Messianic  Congregation 

ment,  the  seeds  needed  to  be  transplanted  out  of 
the  rigid  Jewish  soil  of  Palestine  into  the  wide 
world  of  heathen  religions  and  of  Greek  culture; 
in  both  of  these  the  elements  were  waiting  and 
ready,  by  the  acquisition  of  which  the  new  spirit 
was  to  broaden  out  into  a  world  religion  and  crystal- 
lize into  the  Christian  Church. 


149 


Book  II 

THE   EVOLUTION    OF 

EARLY-CHRISTIANITY 

INTO  THE  CHURCH 


THE  APOSTLE  PAUL 


THE   APOSTLE   PAUL' 

We  have  seen  that  the  faith  of  the  early-congre- 
gation at  Jerusalem  differed  so  slightly  from  Juda- 
ism that  it  presents  the  appearance  of  a  sect  be- 
lieving in  the  Messiah,  rather  than  a  new  religious 
community.  Had  this  conservative  attitude  of  the 
first  disciples  been  maintained,  there  never  would 
have  been  a  Christian  church,  but  in  all  probability 
the  reform  movement  inaugurated  by  Jesus  would 
have  been  destroyed  with  the  Jewish  state.  The 
work  of  Jesus  escaped  this  danger  through  Paul, 
who  had  been  converted  from  a  passionate  persecu- 
tor into  a  follower  of  the  faith  in  Christ ;  he  recog- 
nized what  was  new  and  peculiar  in  this  faith  more 
clearly  than  the  first  disciples,  and,  more  energetic 
than  they,  he  separated  it  from  the  Jewish  religion 
of  the  Law  and  elevated  it  to  the  plane  of  an  inde- 
pendent religion  for  humanity.  According  to  his 
own  words,  he  knew  himself  to  be  chosen  and  called 
before  birth  by  God's  grace,  to  perform  this  world- 
historical  deed.  Innate  natural  tendencies,  external 
circumstances  and  life-conduct  united  in  equipping 
him  for  his  great  life  mission. 

Paulus  (according  to  the  Jewish  name  Saulus) 
was  born  of  Jewish  parents  in  Tarsus,  a  Greek  city 
in  Cilicia.     His  education  in  the  Jewish  household 

155 


Christian  Origins 

of  his  parents  early  wakened  his  rehgious  sense, — 
the  pious  feeling  of  absolute  dependence  on  God  and 
the  duty  of  serving  Him.  In  the  school  of  Gamaliel 
he  was  trained  to  become  a  strict  Pharisaic  teacher 
of  the  Law.  It  was  his  earnest  endeavor  to  appear 
upright  before  God,  by  the  strictest  fulfillment  of 
the  Law's  demands.  Naturally,  this  statute-service 
was  unable  to  set  his  conscience  at  ease;  his  later 
utterances  about  the  conflict  between  the  divine  laws 
in  the  soul  and  the  sinful  instincts  of  the  members, 
about  the  dependence,  the  weakness,  the  misery  of 
man  tortured  by  the  slavish  service  to  the  Law — 
these  were  the  outgrowth  of  his  personal  experience. 
This  inner  dissatisfaction  of  Sa^ilus,  the  earnest 
Pharisee  for  the  Law,  in  a  certain  sense,  contained 
the  seed  of  the  later  apostolic  teaching  of  the  free- 
dom of  God's  children. 

No  less  important  was  the  fact  that  Paul  hailed 
from  Tarsus,  the  Greek  city,  which,  after  Alex- 
andria, was  the  main  seat  of  Hellenic  culture,  especi- 
ally of  the  Stoic  school.  Several  of  its  teachers, 
whose  names  we  know,  came  from  Tarsus;  among 
others,  there  was  that  Athenodorus,  the  teacher  of 
Cicero  and  Augustus,  whom  his  grateful  fellow 
citizens  made  a  hero  upon  his  death  and  celebrated 
annually  with  a  memorial  feast.  Young  Paul  cer- 
tainly must  have  known  of  such  a  celebrity  in  his 
native  town  and  learned  something  of  his  doings 
and  his  teachings.  Besides,  it  was  hardly  necessary 
for  him  to  attend  the  lectures  of  the  Stoic  teachers 

156 


The  Apostle  Paul 

in  order  to  become  acquainted  with  their  main  ideas ; 
in  their  popular  form,  as  we  have  them  in  the  writings 
of  Seneca  and  Epictetus,  these  ideas  were  enunciated 
daily  on  the  streets  and  in  the  market-places  by 
public  speakers,  who  called  themselves  philosophers, 
soul  doctors  or  messengers  of  truth.  How  could 
they  remain  unknown,  under  such  circumstances,  to 
a  bright  Jewish  lad,  such  as  we  must  picture  Paul 
to  have  been?  The  epistles  of  Paul  are  the  best 
proof  that  he  did  know  these  ideas,  for  they  contain 
such  remarkable  coincidences  of  thought  and  speech 
with  the  Stoic  philosopher  Seneca,  that  some  have 
held  that  Seneca  was  the  teacher  of  Paul  while 
others  maintain  that  Seneca  was  Paul's  pupil. 
While  both  suppositions  are  impossible,  the  fact  of 
these  parallel  passages  points  to  a  common  source 
which  is  to  be  found  in  the  culture  of  that  period 
saturated  with  Stoic  thought;  it  was  a  strong 
influence,  even  upon  the  Jewish  dispersion  in  Asia 
Minor,  in  Syria  and  in  Egypt. 

Not  only  Greek  philosophy  but  the  heathen  reli- 
gions scarcely  could  be  learned  better  anywhere  than 
in  Tarsus,  for  at  that  time,  the  mystery-cults  were 
spreading  from  the  Orient  through  the  West.  As 
early  as  Pompey's  time,  Tarsus  was  a  seat  of  the 
Mithra  religion  which  had  come  from  Persia  and 
mingled  with  the  cults  worshipping  the  sun-god  in 
Hither- Asia — especially  in  Phrygia,  where  it  had 
taken  over  certain  customs  of  the  orgiastic  religion 
of  Attis  and   Cybele.      In  a   Mithra  liturgy   still 

157 


Christian  Origins 

extant,  the  initiatory  service,  by  which  proselytes 
were  admitted  into  the  Mithra  rehgion,  is  repre- 
sented as  a  mystical  dying  and  rebirth,  by  which  the 
guilt  of  the  old  life  is  cleansed  and  extirpated  and 
a  new,  immortal  life  is  created  through  the  spirit; 
hence  the  initiated  spoke  of  themselves  as  "  reborn 
for  eternity/*  So  striking  is  the  connection  of  these 
ideas  with  Paul's  teaching  of  Christian  baptism  as 
a  community  of  death  and  resurrection  with  Christ 
(Romans  6)  that  the  thought  of  historical  relation 
between  the  two  cannot  be  evaded.  The  Mithra - 
sacraments  also  included  a  sacred  meal,  at  which 
the  sanctified  bread  and  a  cup  of  water  or  even  wine 
served  as  mystic  symbols  of  the  distribution  of  the 
divine  life  to  the  Mithra-believers.  At  such  cele- 
brations, the  latter  appeared  in  animal-masks  indicat- 
ing by  these  representations  attributes  of  their 
god  Mithra ;  the  celebrants  had  "  put  on  "  their  god, 
which  meant  that  they  had  entered  into  a  com- 
munity of  life  with  him.  This,  too,  is  paralleled 
closely  by  Paul's  teaching  of  the  Lord's  Supper  as  a 
"  communion  of  the  blood  and  of  the  body  of 
Christ"  d  Cor.  lo,  i6),  which  he  who  had  been 
i-aptized,  has  "  put  on  "  (Gal.  3,  2y). 

When  it  is  remembered  that  the  mystical  teaching 
of  both  sacraments,  the  baptism  and  the  Lord's  Sup- 
per, is  peculiar  to  the  ApoStle  Paul  and  finds  no 
explanation  in  the  older  tradition  of  the  congrega- 
tion, the  supposition  is  natural,  that  it  is  based  on 
a  combination  of  Christian  ideas  with  the  ideas  and 

158 


The  Apostle  Paul 

rites  of  the  Mithra  rehgion,  as  Paul  might  have 
known  them  from  his  home  in  Tarsus.  Not  that 
Saul,  the  Pharisee,  ever  felt  any  sympathy  for  these 
heathen  rites ;  yet  all  his  Jewish  rigorism  could  not 
hide  from  his  ken  the  longing  for  salvation,  purifica- 
tion and  guarantee  of  life  revealed  by  these  mys- 
teries, yea,  his  interest  must  have  been  the  more 
intense,  the  stronger  the  vibration  of  the  related 
chord  in  his  own  bosom.  Oft  the  question  may 
have  forced  itself  upon  him :  whether  the  heathen 
world  seeking  for  God  with  such  intense  longing 
would  ever  achieve  truth  and  peace?  If  so,  how 
much  of  it  ?  Was  it  to  come  through  Moses'  Law  ? 
But  this  Law  did  not  give  the  earnest  Jew  inner 
satisfaction,  how  much  less  could  it  serve  as  the 
common  highway  of  the  nations  to  God!  Saul 
learned  the  answer  to  this  question  in  the  decisive 
hour  of  his  life,  which  transformed  the  man-eager- 
for-the-Law  into  Paul,  the  Apostle  of  Christ. 

Historically,  Paul  appears  first  in  connection  with 
the  martyrdom  of  Stephen,  the  Hellenist,  who  seems 
to  have  drawn  most  far-reaching,  reformatory  con- 
clusions from  the  faith  in  the  Messiah  Jesus,  con- 
clusions far  beyond  any  of  the  other  disciples. 
Stephen  was  accused  of  saying  that  Jesus  would 
destroy  the  Temple  and  change  the  customs  deliv- 
ered by  Moses  (Acts  6,  14).  When  Paul,  the 
Pharisee  rabbi,  heard  such  utterances  of  the  adher- 
ents to  the  faith  in  the  Messiah  Jesus,  and  heard 
public  defense  of  them  in  the  synagogue,  it  is  con- 

159 


Christian  Origins 

ceivable  that  they  aroused  his  greatest  indignation. 
His  Pharisaic  presuppositions  sufficed  to  rob  the 
beHef  in  a  crucified  Messiah  of  all  sense,  but  the 
subversive  conclusions  of  a  Stephen  made  it  a  crim- 
inal attack  on  the  most  sacred  traditions  of  the 
fathers.  Therefore,  Paul  played  the  part  of  chief 
witness  at  the  execution  of  Stephen  and  developed 
such  eagerness  in  the  further  persecution  of  the 
congregation,  that  the  hierarchs  bestowed  upon  him 
full  power  to  undertake  the  painful  trial  of  those 
members  of  the  messianic  congregation  who  had 
sought  refuge  in  the  Jewish  colony  at  Damascus. 
But  the  persecutor  was  to  arrive  at  Damascus — a 
convert. 

There  are  three  reports  of  Paul's  conversion  in 
The  Acts,  in  chapters  9,  22  and  26.  The  details  of 
this  thrice-told  story  cannot  lay  claim  to  considera- 
tion as  accurate  history ;  one  reason  and  a  sufficient 
one  being  the  many  contradictions  they  contain. 
The  words  which  one  report  puts  into  the  mouth 
of  the  appearing  Christ,  another  makes  Ananias 
say  at  Damascus;  in  one  version,  the  companions 
of  Paul  fall  to  the  ground  with  him,  in  another 
they  remain  standing ;  in  one,  they  hear  a  voice  but 
see  nothing,  while  in  another  they  see  a  light  but 
hear  nothing.  Deducting  these  minor  features,  for 
which  the  narrator  is  responsible,  this  substance 
remains:  on  the  way  to  Damascus,  Paul  suddenly 
saw  a  light-appearance  descending  from  heaven  and 
heard  a  voice  which  he  believed  to  be  that  of  Jesus. 

160 


The  Apostle  Paul 

Paul's  own  expressions  in  the  epistles  harmonize 
therewith  in  the  essentials,  inasmuch  as,  without  ex- 
ception, they  refer  to  the  revelation  of  Christ  trans- 
figured by  the  heavenly  flood  of  light  as  the  decisive 
experience,  by  which  he  was  called  not  only  to  join 
the  faithful  disciples,  but  also  to  become  Christ's 
apostle  to  the  gentiles.  For  instance,  when  Paul 
asks  (I  Cor.  9,  i),  "Have  I  not  seen  Jesus,  our 
Lord  ?  "  this  seeing  taken  wdth  the  context,  can  only 
refer  to  his  conversion,  the  experience  upon  which 
his  apostleship  is  based.  Or  in  I  Cor.  15,  9,  after 
he  has  recited  the  previous  appearances  of  Christ 
to  other  disciples,  he  continues :  "  And  last  of  all, 
as  unto  one  born  out  of  due  time,  he  appeared  ^ 
me  also.  For  I  am  the  least  of  the  apostles,  that 
am  not  meet  to  be  called  an  apostle,  because  I  per- 
secuted the  church  of  God.  But  by  the  grace  of 
God,  I  am  what  I  am."  It  is  clear,  that  here,  too, 
he  traces  his  call  to  apostleship  back  to  an  appear- 
ance of  Christ,  which,  being  essentially  similar  in 
nature  to  the  previous  appearances  of  Christ,  he  puts 
in  the  same  series  with  them. 

Certain  as  was  his  conviction  of  the  objective 
truth  of  this  Christ-appearance,  other  utterances 
point  to  the  fact  that  he  did  not  hold  his  experience 
to  have  been  the  sense-perception  of  a  body  of 
earthly  matter,  but  the  vision  of  a  supersensual 
being,  seen  with  the  inner  eye  of  the  spirit.  For 
he  says  (Gal.  i,  16)  :  "it  was  the  pleasure  of  God 
to  reveal  his  Son  in  Me,"  and  (II  Cor.  4,  6)  God 

161 


Christian  Origins 

sent  light  out  of  "  darkness,  who  shined  in  our 
hearts,  to  give  the  Hght  of  the  knowledge  of  the 
glory  of  God  in  the  face  of  Jesus  Christ." 

In  complete  agreement  is  his  description  (i  Cor. 
I5>  45  seq.)  of  Christ  as  the  heavenly  man,  whose 
image  we  will  bear  at  the  resurrection  and  whose 
body  has  nothing  in  common  with  flesh  and  blood 
but  is  a  spiritual  or  heavenly  light-body,  similar  in 
nature  to  that  which  is  attributed  to  heavenly  beings. 
Such  a  spiritual  or  celestial  body  cannot  be  the  imme- 
diate object  of  sense-perception  by  the  eyes;  the 
eyes  can  only  see  a  glow  of  light,  to  which  the  inner 
sense  or  consciousness  of  the  beholder  ascribes  the 
particular  interpretation  of  an  appearance  of  Christ. 
Thus,  this  belongs  to  the  kind  of  inner  visionary 
appearances  and  bears  close  relation  to  those  other 
"  revelations  and  visions  "  which  are  mentioned  fre- 
quently in  the  life  of  the  Apostle.  In  this  connec- 
tion, II  Cor.  12,  I  seq.  is  particularly  characteristic; 
the  subjective,  ecstatic  state  of  consciousness  is  made 
clear  by  the  addition,  which  says,  that  he  does  not 
know  whether  he  was  in  the  body  or  out  of  the 
body  during  the  ecstasy  when  he  believed  himself 
caught  up  to  the  third  heaven.  When  he  speaks 
of  peculiar  bodily  pains  and  states  of  weakness  in 
connection  with  these  ecstatic  experiences,  there  is 
undoubtedly  evidence  of  a  state  of  nervous  shock 
as  the  physical  basis  of  the  ecstatic  experience. 
Hence,  we  may  conclude  that  Paul's  physical  con- 
stitution was  predisposed  favorably  to  experiences 

of  that  nature. 

162 


The  Apostle  Paul 

Other  cases  give  an  insight  into  the  more  positive 
psychological  conditions  preceding  the  approach  of 
*'  revelations."  If  the  decision  to  extend  the  mis- 
sionary activity  into  Europe  was  brought  about  by 
a  nocturnal  vision  (as  related  in  Acts  i6,  9  seq.)  or 
if  the  decisive  journey  to  the  meeting  of  the  Apostles 
at  Jerusalem  was  the  result  of  a  revelation  (as  re- 
lated in  Gal.  2,  i),  then  it  is  clear  that  in  such  cases 
the  "  vision  "  or  the  "  revelation  "  was  the  form 
of  consciousness,  in  which  Paul's  spirit  struggled 
through  doubt  to  clarity,  through  inner  uncertainty 
to  firm  decision.  These  visionary  experiences  never 
appeared  without  motive  but  always  had  their  con- 
ditioning causes  in  the  anterior  soul-state,  from 
which  they  are  psychologically  to  be  explained. 
The  task  thus  put  upon  historical  research  is  to 
make  clear  Paul's  experience  on  the  way  to  Da- 
mascus, after  the  analogy  of  other  experiences,  by 
attempting  to  throw  light  upon  those  psychological 
preceding  conditions  and  motives  which  might  be 
presupposed  with  probability  to  produce  such  a  sit- 
uation. 

A  noteworthy  suggestion  thereto  is  to  be  found  in 
the  narrative  of  Acts,  where  the  words  which  Jesus 
says,  when  he  appears,  are  made  to  read :  "  Saul, 
Saul,  why  persecutest  thou  me?  it  is  hard  for  thee 
to  kick  against  the  goad."  (26,  14.)  In  his  soul 
the  persecutor  of  the  congregation  felt  a  goad 
which  he  strove  vainly  to  oppose.  What  else  could 
that  goad  have  been  but  the  grave  doubt  of  his  own 

163 


Christian  Origins 

right  to  persecute  the  congregation  of  Jesus,  the 
doubt  whether,  after  all,  truth  was  on  his  side  or 
on  the  side  of  the  persecuted?  How  might  such  a 
doubt  have  come  to  the  fanatical  Pharisee?  The 
first  occasion  was  the  impression  which  the  deeds 
and  the  words  of  the  persecuted  must  have  produced 
upon  him.  Their  joyous  courage  of  confession 
suggested  the  question  to  him,  whether  a  faith,  so 
strong  in  suffering  and  in  death,  could  be  but  an 
empty  delusion  or  a  godless  deception?  If,  there- 
upon, he  investigated  the  content  of  that  faith  more 
fully  and  considered  the  texts  corroborative  of  its 
truth,  it  must  have  been  the  more  difficult  from  the 
Pharisaic  viewpoint,  to  deny  its  truth  absolutely. 
The  seers  of  the  apocalypses  of  Henoch  and  Esra 
had  spoken  of  a  heavenly  Messiah  who  would  be  hid- 
den with  God  until  he  revealed  himself  in  his  time 
from  heaven,  whereas  the  usual  conception  of  the 
Messiah  was  that  of  a  man  sprung  from  the  Jewish 
nation,  and  therefore  an  earthly  ruler.  Might  not 
this  contradiction  in  the  Jewish  messianic  expecta- 
tions find  its  simplest  solution  in  the  Christian  faith 
in  the  resurrected  Jesus  who  ascended  to  heaven  and 
would  soon  return  as  the  heavenly  Messiah  ?  Natu- 
rally the  crucifixion  of  Jesus  was  a  vexation  to  Jew- 
ish thought,  difficult  to  overcome ;  for  the  Law  said 
that  a  curse  rested  upon  those  who  died  upon  the 
scaffold.  But  now,  supposing  the  Christians  pointed 
to  the  suffering  servant  of  God  in  the  book  of  the 
Prophet  Isaiah  and  considered  the  fate  of  their  mas- 

164 


The  Apostle  Paul 

ter  as  the  fufillment  of  that  prophecy :  what  could  the 
Pharisee  interpose,  he  who  had  been  taught  in  his 
own  school,  to  consider  the  innocent  martyrdom  of 
the  righteous  (for  example,  the  Maccabean  blood 
witnesses)  as  a  means  of  atonement  to  make  good 
the  sins  of  their  nation  ?  Yes,  the  thought  of  a  suf- 
fering and  dying  Messiah  which  might  seem  para- 
doxical to  the  Pharisee  from  one  side,  might  be 
looked  upon  in  another  aspect  as  relief  from  a  diffi- 
culty of  the  Pharisaic  faith.  They  expected  the  early 
arrival  of  the  Messiah  who  would  save  his  oppressed 
people ;  at  the  same  time  it  was  one  of  their  immov- 
able presuppositions  that  only  a  righteous  nation 
would  see  the  day  of  the  Messiah.  Where  was  there 
such  a  righteous  people,  fully  conforming  to  God's 
will  and  showing  itself  worthy  to  receive  the  Mes- 
siah ?  Had  the  strenuous  exertion  of  the  Pharisees 
to  educate  the  nation  to  righteousness,  accomplished 
any  noticeable  success  ?  Did  they  not  rather  condemn 
and  despise  bitterly  "  the  mass,  which  knows  not  the 
Law"  ?  Must  not  every  conscientious  Pharisee,  and 
Paul  was  such  a  one,  have  confessed  that  he  himself 
was  far  removed  from  his  ideal  of  righteousness? 
Was  he  not  conscious  that  his  eagerness  for  right- 
eousness could  not  destroy  the  sinful  tendencies,  but 
rather  aggravated  and  increased  them?  When  he 
compared  this  dissatisfaction  in  his  own  heart,  full 
of  eagerness  for  the  Law,  with  the  joy  produced  by 
the  faith  in  Christ  in  the  disciples  of  Jesus,  must 
not  the  question  have  forced  itself  upon  him :   may; 

165 


Christian  Origins 

not  this  faith  be  the  true  salvation  from  the  unfor- 
tunate slavery  of  the  Law  ?  May  it  not  be  the  road 
to  such  a  righteousness  as  never  could  be  reached 
through  the  Lav^,  a  righteousness  which  was  not  a 
condition  of  the  coming  of  the  Messiah,  but  the 
effect  of  his  having  come, — the  fruit  of  his  death 
and  resurrection? 

We  may  suppose  that  such  thoughts  moved  Paul's 
soul  on  the  way  to  Damascus;  the  doubt  of  the 
correctness  of  his  previous  activity  and  of  the  truth 
of  his  previous  faith  entered  like  a  fiery  goad  into 
his  heart  and  produced  the  most  terrible  excitement 
of  body  and  soul.  If  we  add  thereto  the  need  for 
a  quick  decision,  forced  by  the  rapid  approach  to 
Damascus,  the  silence  of  solitude  and  the  burning 
heat  of  the  desert,  we  will  be  justified  in  our  judg- 
ment, that  the  appearance  of  a  vision,  under  the 
circumstances,  was  in  no  wise  outside  the  category 
of  similar  experiences.  Whatever  moves  the  soul 
powerfully  in  such  moments,  imagination  trans- 
forms into  an  object  apparently  seen  and  heard  by 
the  senses;  while  the  exciting  cause  does  not  lie,  as 
usual,  in  an  external  object  but  in  an  inner  state  of 
the  soul.  The  picture  of  the  heavenly  Messiah, 
which  occupied  his  thoughts,  appeared  before  his 
eyes  as  a  figure  of  light  shining  from  heaven,  and 
the  denunciatory  voice  of  his  own  conscience 
changed  into  Christ's  cry  from  above :  "  Saul,  why 
persecutest  thou  me?  "  Such  appearances  and  such 
voices  of  heavenly  beings  occur  frequently  in  the 

1 66 


The  Apostle  Paul 

religious  history  of  the  East  and  of  the  West;  if 
the  psychological  explanation  is  conceded  and  gen- 
erally accounted  correct  in  other  cases,  such  as  that 
of  Mohammed,  no  one  can  deny  the  right  of  his- 
torical research  to  apply  the  same  method  of  ex- 
planation to  similar  appearances  in  Biblical  history. 
The  essence  of  Paul's  experience  was  a  victory  of 
the  superior  Christian  truth  over  the  prejudices  and 
narrowness  of  his  Jewish  consciousness;  consider- 
ing the  presuppositions  of  the  ancient  world-view 
and  his  individual  predisposition,  it  was  both  natural 
and  it  is  easily  comprehended  that  this  inner  con- 
vulsion of  spirit  should  have  taken  on  the  form  of 
an  external  miracle  in  his  consciousness. 

The  consequences  of  this  ecstatic-visionary  experi- 
ence were  more  far-reaching  for  Paul  than  had  been 
the  similar  experiences  for  the  older  disciples.  By 
the  conviction  that  the  crucified  Jesus  had  been 
resurrected  by  God  and  taken  to  heaven,  their  faith 
in  the  master — a  faith  which  had  been  won  but 
weakened  at  times — was  restored  and,  to  a  certain 
degree,  elevated  to  a  higher  plane;  but  in  other 
respects,  no  break  with  their  Jewish  consciousness 
had  been  caused.  For  Paul,  however,  the  experi- 
ence near  Damascus  was  the  beginning  of  a  com- 
plete change  in  his  entire  religious  consciousness; 
it  seemed  to  him  as  though  he  had  become  a  "  new 
creature,"  who  died  with  Christ  for  the  world  and 
for  the  Law,  as  though  his  old  ego  lived  no  longer 
while  Christ  only  lived  in  him ;  the  spirit  of  the  Son 

167 


Christian  Origins 

of  God  had  taken  possession  of  his  members  and 
his  powers,  to  use  them  henceforth  as  tools  in  his 
cause  (Gal.  2,  19  seq. ;  6,  14  seq. ;  II  Cor.  5,  14 
seq.). 

From  the  beginning,  he  had  discerned  clearly, 
with  the  sharp  eye  of  an  enemy,  the  irreconcilable 
opposition  of  the  national-Jewish  worship  of  Law 
and  messianic  belief  on  the  other  hand  and  the  new 
faith  in  the  Messiah  Jesus  whom  the  Jews  had 
rejected  on  the  other;  hence,  after  his  conversion, 
it  was  not  so  easily  possible  for  him,  as  it  had  been 
for  the  older  disciples,  to  unite  the  old  and  the  new. 
In  the  light  of  the  resurrection  and  the  heavenly 
Messiahship,  the  crucifixion  of  Jesus,  which  had  been 
the  source  of  annoyance  and  opposition,  became  the 
basis  of  a  new  religious  world-view  in  which  the 
Mosaic  Law  was  abrogated  by  a  new  and  higher 
principle.  What  was  the  nature  of  this  new  prin- 
ciple? What  might  be  the  object  and  the  meaning 
of  the  death  and  resurrection  of  the  Messiah  Jesus 
in  the  divine  intention?  In  what  way  was  a  new 
road  to  salvation  disclosed  by  this  divine  arrange- 
ment,— a  way  independent  of  the  Jewish  Law,  de- 
signed for  all  men  without  distinction  of  birth,  open 
to  all  who  hearken  to  the  message  of  salvation  in 
the  proclamation  of  Christ?  These  are  the  ques- 
tions which  moved  Paul's  soul  after  his  conversion 
and  his  reflections  upon  them  resulted  in  what  is 
usually  called  **  PauHne  Theology  " — the  systematic 
expression  of  his  personal  belief  in  Christ. 

168 


The  Apostle  Paul 

From  the  beginning,  Christians  have  been  divided 
in  their  judgment  on  the  teaching  of  the  Apostle 
Paul ;  for  some,  it  was  the  supreme  truth  and  norma- 
tive authority  of  the  Christian  faith ,  while  for 
others,  it  was  a  perversion  and  falsification  of  the 
true  gospel  of  Jesus,  an  arbitrary  product  of  rabbinic 
speculation  and  dialectics.  This  strife  is  still  being 
waged  and  it  almost  seems  as  though  the  antipathy 
to  Paul  is  in  the  ascendant.  As  a  reaction  against 
the  over-estimation  of  Pauline  forms  of  dogma  by 
the  Church,  this  is  comprehensible;  for  the  Church 
tried  to  make  of  those  forms  binding,  dogmatic 
laws  for  all  time,  regardless  of  the  time,  age  and 
circumstances  conditioning  them.  It  is  remarkable, 
at  the  same  time,  in  our  period  which  boasts  of  its 
historical  culture  and  which,  with  psychological 
understanding,  is  so  well  able  to  enter  into  past 
modes  of  thought.  I  think  that  if  we  were  to  ap- 
ply the  method  ordinarily  employed,  in  the  case 
of  Paul,  the  religious  teacher,*  we  would  be  equally 
protected  from  an  overestimation  of  the  ephemeral 
in  his  teachings  and  from  a  failure  to  recognize  their 
historical  importance  and  ideal  truth. 

Let  us  recollect  it  was  a  difficult  task  for  the 
Apostle,  who  had  to  become  a  Greek  for  the  Greeks 
and  a  Jew  for  the  Jews  in  order  to  win  them  both 
for  Christ,  to  give  varied  expression  to  the  new 

*  Most  reprehensible  would  be  the  suppression  of  his  theology, 
while  constantly  speaking  of  his  personal  piety.  The  two  cannot  be 
separated,  and  Paul's  historical  achievement  certainly  does  not  rest 
upon  his  pious  emotions  but  upon  his  theological  thoughts. 

169 


Christian  Origins 

religion  of  salvation  and  the  way  he  experienced  it 
personally  as  a  power  for  bliss,  employing  many 
forms  of  thought  taken  from  the  heathen  and  Jewish 
notions.  There  were  the  words  of  revelation  in 
the  Law  and  the  prophets  interpreted  after  the  alle- 
gorical method  of  rabbinical  exegesis;  then,  the 
legal  categories  of  the  Jewish  school-theology,  the 
legends  and  the  apocalyptic  pictures  of  Jewish 
pietism;  his  Jewish  thinking  had  mastered  these; 
but  now  he  had  to  explain  his  new  faith  by  them  and 
as  far  as  possible  to  reconcile  it  with  them. 

In  the  heathen  countries,  there  was  added  the 
mystery-language  of  Oriental  cults  and  the  wisdom 
teachings  of  Greek  popular  philosophy ;  from  these, 
also,  the  apostle  to  the  heathen  had  to  choose  points 
of  contact  and  forms  of  expression  for  his  preach- 
ing of  Christ.  It  is  not  surprising  that  such  hetero- 
geneous elements  did  not  merge  into  a  unity  without 
contradictions;  but  what  arouses  wonder  is  the 
creative  power  and  originality  of  the  religious  genius 
who  could  subordinate  all  of  these  elements  of  a 
chaotic,  fermenting  era  to  the  one  new  spirit  of  the 
Christ-religion  and  who  could  transform  them  into 
vessels  and  symbols  of  the  Christian  idea. 

In  order  to  understand  the  great  historical  im- 
portance of  this  founder  of  Christian  theology,  it 
is  not  sufficient  to  count  up  the  series  of  teachings 
and  know  the  superficial  criticism  of  them;  but 
rather,  one  must  enter  into  his  period  and  his  soul, 
and  attempt  to  feel  as  he  did  during  the  religious 

170 


The  Apostle  Paul 

experiences,  to  think  over  again  his  succession  of 
thoughts.  Only  in  that  way  can  justice  be  done  to 
him  and  only  in  that  way  is  the  fact  of  his  tre- 
mendous historical  influence  to  be  understood.  As 
far  as  this  is  possible  in  a  condensed  review,  I  will 
attempt  to  do  so  in  what  follows. 

The  peculiar  novelty  in  the  Pauline  teaching  is 
the  conception  of  the  man  Jesus  as  the  Christ.  Paul 
agreed  with  the  early-congregation  in  the  belief  that 
Jesus  was  a  lineal  descendant  of  the  house  of  David 
"  after  the  flesh,"  which  means,  according  to  his 
earthly  mode  of  appearance ;  but,  in  his  conception, 
that  is  not  the  real  nature  of  Christ,  it  is  merely  a 
human  form,  taken  on  from  time  to  time,  embodying 
a  heavenly  spirit-being.  Paul  taught  that,  according 
to  his  real  nature,  Christ  is  a  supermundane  and 
preworldly  being ;  characterized  not  directly  as  God, 
but  as  God's  own,  first-born  son  and  image;  to 
him  is  ascribed  a  mediatory  participation  in  the 
work  of  creation.  From  heaven  to  earth,  God  sent 
his  "  Son ''  in  the  unique  sense,  the  heavenly  man, 
to  take  on  a  human  body,  to  save  a  sinful  humanity 
by  his  death,  to  conquer  death  by  his  resurrection 
and  to  be  the  mediator  of  life  as  well  as  monarch 
of  a  redeemed  humanity.  Paul  took  no  further 
consideration  of  Jesus'  life  on  earth;  the  one  pur- 
pose of  the  incarnation  of  the  heavenly  Son  of  God 
was  to  suffer  the  death  of  a  man  (on  the  cross,  the 
peculiar  form  of  death,  despised  and  accursed  of 
the  Law)  ;    by  this  bloody  sacrifice  of  repentance, 

171 


Christian  Origins 

he  was  to  do  away  with  the  guilt  of  sin,  to  break  the 
curse  of  the  Law  and  the  power  of  death  at  the  same 
time,  and  to  guarantee  the  hope  of  immortality  to  all 
of  those  who,  by  faith  and  baptism,  enter  into  the 
community  of  the  son  of  God. 

If  we  stop  at  this  point  in  order  to  ask  how  Paul 
arrived  at  this  peculiar  method,  he  furnishes  the 
answer  that  it  was  not  by  human  traditions  handed 
down  from  the  oldest  apostles,  but  an  immediate 
revelation  of  Christ  (Gal.  i,  12)  ;  speaking  psycho- 
logically, it  was  the  product  of  an  intuition  which 
involuntarily  forced  itself  upon  his  spirit.  But  even 
among  creative  spirits,  such  intuitions  are  attached 
to  certain  notions,  which  have  found  their  way  from 
somewhere  into  consciousness,  and  gathering  there, 
furnish  the  material  for  new  combinations.  In  the 
case  of  this  intuition  of  Paul,  this  will  have  to  be 
presupposed  so  much  the  more,  because  it  is  not 
difficult  to  prove  the  fact  of  parallels  to  his  doctrines 
of  Christ  and  redemption  in  both  Jewish  and 
heathen  quarters.  The  idea  of  Christ  as  a  super- 
mundane, spirit-being,  a  heavenly  man  superior  to 
the  angels  and  primordial  son  of  God, — this  was 
known  to  Paul  through  the  Jewish  apocalyptic 
writings.* 

*  Daniel  (7,  13)  is  generally  credited  as  the  source,  but  perhaps  it 
lies  still  further  back  ;  we  cannot  make  a  positive  assertion  yet,  but 
there  is  food  for  thought  in  the  fact  that  as  early  as  the  Indian  leg- 
end, the  heavenly  spirit-being  which  appears  in  Buddha  and  other 
redemptory  personages  is  designated  as  "  the  great  man,"  while  cer- 
tain Jewish-Christian  Gnostics  have  it  that  the  redeemer-spirit  which 
appeared  in  Jesus  is  the  same  as  the  one  incarnated  first  in  Adam. 
It  may  be  that  this  has  some  bearing  on  the  spiritual  ideal-man  which 
Philo  found  in  I  Mos.  i. 

172 


The  Apostle  Paul 

It  was  easier  for  Paul  to  carry  this  conception 
over  to  Jesus  making  him  the  earthly  incarnation, 
the  heavenly  Son  of  God,  who  appeared  period- 
ically, because  Paul  had  not  personally  known  the- 
historical  Jesus  and  because  his  visionary  sight  had 
had  only  the  light-figure  of  the  heavenly  Messiah 
Jesus  as  its  object.  In  fact,  Paul  was  much  inclined 
to  identify  this  Messiah  with  those  ancient  heavenly 
men  of  the  apocalypses,  and  thus,  to  regard  Jesus, 
the  man  of  earth,  as  the  episodic  appearance  of  a 
supermundane  spirit-being  in  human  shape.  Equally 
simple  is  the  explanation  of  the  Pauline  doctrine  of 
redemption  by  the  presuppositions  involved  in  the 
heathen  and  Jewish  mode  of  thought  in  that  time. 
In  Judaism,  the  primitive  popular  idea  of  the  vicari- 
ous, expiatory  sacrifice  (which  is  the  real  basis  of 
the  well  known  description  of  the  suffering  servant 
of  God  in  Isaiah  53)  had  developed  into  the  theory 
accepted  by  the  Pharisaic  school,  that  the  martyr- 
dom of  the  righteous  has  the  effect  of  wiping  away 
all  guilt  and  atoning  for  the  sins  of  the  whole  nation, 
an  effect  equal  to  that  of  the  Atonement  Day :  thus, 
in  the  fourth  book  of  Maccabees,  the  blood  of  the 
pious  martyrs  is  called  the  expiatory  sacrifice  by 
which  God  saves  Israel.  The  martyrdom  of  Jesus 
was  a  fact  which  Christians  were  called  upon  to 
interpret  and  to  justify  in  their  religion.  How 
natural  it  seems  to  apply  that  theory  to  this  special 
case  and  thus  do  away  with  the  reproach  of  the 
cross!     One  question  is  entirely  disregarded:   why 

173 


Christian  Origins 

was  any  atoning  sacrifice  of  blood  absolutely  neces- 
sary in  order  to  make  the  forgiveness  of  sins  pos- 
sible? The  fact  to  be  explained  and  the  explanatory 
theory  were  given  presuppositions ;  they  were  sim- 
ply accepted  and  combined.  It  is  possible  that  this 
combination  dates  from  the  early-congregation  and 
that  Paul  took  over  from  it  the  general  thought 
"  how  that  Christ  died  for  our  sins  according  to  the 
Scriptures''  (I  Cor.  15,  3).  In  any  event,  the 
thought  had  no  such  bearing  in  the  early-congrega- 
tion as  Paul  gave  to  it;  Christ's  death  is  the  end 
of  the  Law,  according  to  him,  and  the  founding  of 
a  new  alliance,  a  new  religion  for  all  of  those  who, 
by  faith  and  baptism,  enter  into  community  with 
Christ,  his  death  and  his  resurrection — at  once,  the 
death  of  the  old  man  in  themselves  and  the  birth  of 
the  new  man.  "  That  one  died  for  all,  therefore  all 
died.  Wherefore,  if  any  man  is  in  Christ,  he  is  a 
new  creature:  the  old  things  are  passed  away; 
behold,  they  are  become  new."  (II  Cor.  5,  14,  17.) 
This  mystical  idea  of  the  death  of  Christ,  which 
includes  and  justifies  the  death  and  rebirth  of  Chris- 
tians in  mysterious  fashion,  was  entirely  strange  to 
the  early-congregation  and  cannot  be  deduced  as  a 
simple  consequence  of  the  conception  of  the  atoning 
sacrifice.  Where  is  the  explanation  to  be  found? 
It  has  been  held  that  Paul's  experience  of  inner 
change  through  his  Christian  faith  is  explanatory; 
but  it  is  open  to  debate  whether  for  that  theory  the 
subjective  experience  is  an  adequate  eixplanatory 
motive. 

174 


The  Apostle  Paul 

Perhaps  Paul  was  influenced  by  the  popular  idea 
of  the  god  who  dies  and  returns  to  life,  dominant  a*t 
that  time  in  the  Adonis,  x\ttis  and  Osiris  cults  of 
Hither  Asia  (with  various  names  and  customs, 
everywhere  much  alike).  At  Antioch,  the  Syrian 
capital,  in  which  Paul  had  been  active  for  a  consid- 
erable period,  the  main  celebration  of  the  Adonis- 
feast  took  place  in  the  spring-time ;  on  the  first  day, 
the  death  of  Adonis,  "  the  Lord,"  was  celebrated, 
while  on  the  following  day,  amid  the  wild  songs  of 
lamentations  sung  by  the  women,  the  burial  of  his 
corpse  (represented  by  an  image)  was  enacted;  on 
the  next  day,*  proclamation  was  made  that  the  God 
lives  and  he  (his  image)  was  made  to  rise  in  air.t 
During  the  joyous  feast  of  the  resurrection  of  the 
god  in  the  closely-related  Attis  celebration,  the 
priest  anointed  the  mouths  of  the  mourners  with  oil 
and  repeated  the  formula : 

' '  Good  cheer,  ye  pious  !    As  our  god  is  saved, 
So  shall  we,  too,  be  saved  in  our  distress." 

The  rescue  of  the  god  from  death  is  the  guarantee 
of  a  like  rescue  for  the  adherents  to  his  cult ;  in  the 
mysteries  of  Attis,  Isis  and  Mithra,  the  fact  that  the 
worshippers  partook  of  the  god's  life  by  the  mystical 
participation  in  his  death,  was  visualized  by  such 
rites,  which  employed  symbols  showing  the  death  of 

*  In  the  Osiris  celebration,  it  was  the  third  day  after  the  death  ; 
while  in  the  Attis  celebration,  it  was  the  fourth  day. 

f  Lucian,  de  dea  Syria,  6.  It  is  noteworthy  that  the  Greek  church 
has  preserved  a  similar  ceremony  in  its  Easter  celebration  down  to 
our  own  day. 


Christian  Origins 

the  initiate,  his  descent  into  Hades  and  his  return. 
Hence,  this  ceremony  was  called  the  "  rebirth  to  a 
career  of  new  salvation,"  a  "  holy  birthday/'  In 
one  Mithra  liturgy,  the  new^ly  initiated  pray :  "  Lord, 
reborn  I  depart;  in  that  I  am  lifted  up  and  because 
I  have  been  lifted  up,  I  die;  borne  by  that  birth 
which  produces  life,  I  will  be  saved  in  death  and  go 
the  way  which  thou  hast  established,  according  to 
thy  law  and  the  sacrament  which  thou  hast 
created."* 

The  relation  of  these  ideas  and  customs  to  Paul's 
mystical  theory  of  the  death  and  resurrection  of 
Christ  and  the  participation  of  the  baptized  therein 
is  too  striking:  to  avert  the  thousrht  of  influence 
exerted  by  the  former  on  the  latter.  Though  Jew- 
ish and  heathen  ideas  may  have  been  taken  up 
in  Paul's  doctrine  of  salvation,  they  were  trans- 
formed into  something  new, — into  forms  of  expres- 
sion of  the  ethical-religious  spirit  of  Christ.  In- 
stead of  heathen  nature-gods,  he  sets  up  the  one  Lord 
who  is  the  Spirit,  the  original  son  of  God  or  ideal 
man,  who  atoned  for  the  sin  of  Adam's  descendants 
by  obedience  and  love  and  opened  up  a  new  human- 
divine  life  for  our  race;  his  death  is  not  a  phe- 
nomenon of  nature,  but  is  a  moral  act,  the  self- 
sacrifice  of  sacred  love  (Gal.  2,  20;  II  Cor.  5,  15: 
Phil.  2,  8)  yielding  its  own  life  in  the  service  of 
the  brothers ;  thus,  he  engenders  in  the  faithful,  not 
only  the  hope  of  a  future  life,  but  a  present  moral, 

*  A.  Dieterich,  "  Eine  Mithrasliturgie,"  page  io6. 

176 


The  Apostle  Paul 

new  life,  inspired  and  borne  by  the  holy  spirit  of 
love,  of  peace  and  of  joy.  This  combination  of 
mystical  enthusiasm  with  the  ethical-social  spirit  of 
the  Prophets  and  Jesus — this  was  the  genial  inspira- 
tion, which  made  Paul  the  founder  of  Christian 
theology  and  Church. 

A  further  review  of  the  main  points  of  Paul's  doc- 
trines confirms  the  foregoing.  The  double  viewpoint 
under  which  he  considered  the  salvation  through 
Christ — juristically,  as  the  vicarious,  atoning  sacri- 
fice, and  mystically  as  the  conquest  of  death  and 
creation  of  life — is  seen  again  in  his  description  of 
the  condition  of  the  saved.  The  gospel  of  Christ, 
the  son  of  God  and  the  redeemer,  is  an  object  of 
faith  and  awakens  the  faith  of  those  who  acknowl- 
edge its  saving  power  and  trustfully  accept  it.  The 
believer  is  "  justified,''  which  means  that  he  is 
judged  by  God  to  be  one  who  has  been  atoned  for 
in  the  death  of  Christ,  and  stands  no  longer  under 
the  damning  Law,  but  under  pardoning  grace.  He 
is  "  adopted  as  a  son  of  God,"  which  means  that 
he  may  feel  himself  to  be  an  object  of  God's  fatherly 
love,  a  free  son  and  heir  of  the  prophecies,  one  who 
needs  no  longer  to  tremble  before  the  curse  of  the 
Law  and  bow  slavishly  before  its  correcting  rod. 

But  how?  asked  the  adherents  of  the  Law,  does 
not  such  a  teaching  destroy  morality  and  discipline, 
does  it  not  give  free  rein  to  the  sinful  pleasures  and 
degrade  Christ  to  the  level  of  one  who  furthers  sin  ? 
Not  at  all,  answered  Paul,  the  faith  of  Christ  which 

177 


Christian  Origins 

releases  from  the  Law  of  the  letter,  does  at  the  same 
time  bind  to  a  new  law,  which  has  the  advantage  of 
regenerating  and  the  power  to  move  both  will  and 
energy,  it  is  the  law  of  Christ's  spirit.  At  this  point, 
the  new  mystical-enthusiastic -method  of  treatment 
enters  into  play.  Before  Paul's  time,  it  had  been 
known  that  believers  in  the  Messiah  were  receptacles 
of  the  spirit;  this  had  been  evidenced  by  the  ever- 
recurring  miraculous  appearances,  the  ecstasies,  the 
tongue-speaking,  the  prophecies,  the  wonder-cures, — 
phenomena  which  the  animistic  metaphysics  of  the 
masses  of  that  period  interpreted  as  the  influence  and 
inherence  of  a  supernatural  spirit  being.  Paul,  too, 
made  these  enthusiastic  phenomena  and  their  popular 
interpretation  his  starting  point,  but,  later,  he  gave 
them  the  deeper  ethical  bent.  The  spirit  dwelling  in 
a  Christian  is  not  only  the  cause  of  temporary 
miraculous  effects,  but  is  also  preferably  the  power 
creating  a  permanent  new  life  of  the  whole  person- 
ality,— the  power  of  true  knowledge,  of  good  voli- 
tion and  action.  As  Paul  felt  himself  to  be  a  new 
man  from  the  time  of  his  conversion,  one  in  whom, 
instead  of  the  old  carnal  and  sinful  I,  there  lived 
Christ,  the  Son  of  God  (Gal.  2,  20),  so  he  believed 
that  Christ's  spirit  produced  a  new  religious-moral 
character  in  every  Christian.  Therewith,  Paul 
transformed  the  early-Christian  enthusiasm,  whose 
ecstatic  expressions  were  so  closely  related  to  the 
orgiastic  features  of  the  heathen  mysteries,  into  the 
principle  of  a  new  ethics,  which  employed  the  pathos 

178 


The  Apostle  Paul 

and  the  power  of  that  enthusiasm  in  the  service  of 
the  moral  ideals  of  the  life  of  the  congregation;  at 
one  and  the  same  time,  he  conquered  the  naturalism 
of  the  heathen  mystery-cults,  and  the  legalism  of 
Jewish  ethics,  in  that  he  infused  an  ethical  content 
into  religious  mysticism  and  quickened  morals  by 
religious  enthusiasm.  Both  are  summed  up  in  the 
characteristic  passage :  "  Now  the  Lord  is  the  spirit 
and  where  the  Spirit  of  the  Lord  is,  there  is  liberty." 
(II  Cor.  3,  17.)  In  the  place  of  a  variety  of  unclean 
spirits  and  deities  of  heathen  worship,  there  appears 
the  one  master-spirit  whose  nature  is  "  holiness '' 
(Rom.  I,  4),  meaning  moral  purity  and  love,  and 
in  the  place  of  the  commanding  and  condemning 
letter  of  the  Law  appears  the  spirit  of  the  child- 
relation  which  is  freedom  because  it  is  moral  quick- 
ening. 

From  this  central  point  of  his  theology,  PauFs 
teachings  on  morals  and  mysteries  are  to  be  under- 
stood and  appreciated.  His  is  an  idealistic  ethics, 
closely  related  to  the  Stoic,  but  more  strongly  based 
on  religion.  The  Stoic  and  Pauline  ethics  agree  on 
the  three  main  points :  freedom  from  the  world, 
conquest  of  sensuality  and  brotherly  love.  In  de- 
tail, the  parallelism  is  often  most  astonishing,  par- 
ticularly in  the  sayings  about  the  struggle  between 
the  flesh  and  the  spirit,  about  the  vanity  of  earthly 
life  contrasted  with  the  glory  of  the  life  beyond,  and 
about  the  weakness  and  sinfulness  of  all  men  which, 

179 


Christian  Origins 

serving  as  a  dark  background,  throws  into  glorious 
Hght  the  ideal  of  the  Christian  (for  which  the  Stoics 
put  "  the  wise  man  ").*  But  while  that  pessimistic 
presupposition  rendered  the  realization  of  their  ideal 
problematical  for  the  Stoics,  causing  it  to  lose  in- 
motive-power,  Paul  saw  in  the  Christ,  who  became 
our  brother  and  model  in  Jesus,  the  ideal  of  the  good 
completely  realized ;  as  the  ideal  of  the  good  coming 
into  realization,  he  regarded  the  consecrated  con- 
gregation of  believers,  who,  filled  with  the  Christ 
spirit,  felt  their  one  task  to  be  the  increasing  growth 
of  their  living  and  doing  toward  the  realization  of 
that  which  they  are  in  their  religious  consciousness, 
spirit-beings,  children  of  God,  saints. 

The  fundamental  in  this  new  ethics  is :  "  Become, 
what  you  are!"  In  Paul's  words:  "  If  we  Hve  by 
the  spirit,  by  the  spirit  let  us  also  walk  "  (Gal.  5,26). 
For  this  reason,  the  congregation  of  believers  is 
called  "  the  body  of  Christ" ;  they  form  a  social 
organism  with  the  Christ-spirit  as  its  soul.  In  a 
certain  sense,  they  are  the  enlarged  and  historically- 
enduring  appearance  of  that  heavenly  ideal-man, 
who  made  his  initial  appearance  in  the  individual 
form  in  Jesus.  If  the  congregation  is  the  mystical 
body  of  Christ,  the  connection  of  its  members  can 
only  be  established  by  mystical  acts.  By  baptism, 
the  immersion  of  the  baptized  in  water  not  only 

•Seneca,  too,  speaks  (in  Epist.  41)  of  a  "holy  spirit"  living 
within  us  as  a  guardian  of  the  good,  of  a  divine  power  moving  the 
souls  of  the  good,  residing  in  heaven,  but  sent  down  to  us  so  that  wc 
may  recognize  the  divine, 

x8o 


The  Apostle  Paul 

symbolizes  the  death  of  the  former  man  with  Christ, 
the  emergence  from  the  water  not  only  symbolizes 
the  resurrection  of  the  new  man  in  community  with 
the  resurrected  Christ,  but  the  symbolical  picture 
does  become  a  mystical  reality.  (Rom.  6,  i  seq.) 
Hence  the  baptised  man  has  "  put  on  Christ  "  (Gal. 
3,  2j^\  henceforward  he  lives  "  in  Christ "  as 
Christ  in  him,  or  as  the  spirit  of  Christ  or  of  God 
lives  in  him — all  of  these  expressions  have  essentially 
the  same  meaning  (cp.  Rom.  8,  9),  viz.:  the  new 
state  of  the  saved  man  lifted  beyond  his  mere  natural 
self,  feeling  himself  united  with  God;  formally 
analogous  to  the  states  of  religious  rapture  in  which 
the  heathen  participants  in  orgiastic  cults  felt  them- 
selves being  in  God  or  filled  with  God.*  Paul  con- 
nected the  Lord's  Supper  with  baptism  and  was  the 
first  to  give  it  the  meaning  of  a  sacramental  act  of 
worship ;  in  the  earlier  congregation,  it  had  not  been 
that,  but  it  had  been  a  love-feast,  the  expression  and 
means  of  fraternal  community.  According  to  Paul, 
the  Lord's  Supper  is  partly  a  service  in  remembrance 
of  the  martyrdom  of  Christ  as  the  means  of  estab- 
lishing the  new  covenant,  and  by  participation  in 
this  act,  they  confessed  themselves  to  membership 
(I  Cor.  II,  23-27);  partly,  it  is  a  mystical  com- 
munity of  the  blood  and  body  of  Christ,  mediated  by 
the  drinking  of  the  sacramental  cup  and  eating  of 
the    sacramental    bread,    whereby   the    participants 

*  The  word  enthusiasm  comes  from  the  "  being  in  God  "  ;  there- 
fore, it  was  originally  a  technical  term  of  religious  mysticism, 

X8l 


Christian  Origins 

achieve  and  strengthen  alliance  with  their  master 
and  with  one  other,  just  as  the  heathens  enter  into 
community  with  their  demons  by  the  sacrificial  meal 
(I  Cor.  lo,  16-22). 

This  analogy  to  heathen  acts  of  worship,  which 
Paul  himself  drew,  is  an  analogy  which  holds 
throughout  the  Pauline  teachings  of  the  sacraments ; 
and  the  analogy  is  not  mere  chance  but  rests  on  a 
more  or  less  direct  influence.  In  the  mysteries  of 
Eleusis,  Isis,  and  Mithra,  an  immersion  in  water  was 
employed  as  the  means  of  purification  from  sin  and 
as  the  "  picture  of  resurrection."  One  Mithra 
liturgy  uses  this  act  of  consecration  as  a  picture  of 
death  and  renascence,  exactly  as  Paul  did  in  Romans 
6.  In  the  Attis  mysteries,  there  was  eating  and 
drinking  as  a  sacrament,  whereby  the  consecrated 
was  thought  to  enter  into  community  with  the  god 
and  his  life  after  the  resurrection  from  death,  and 
thus  to  acquire  for  himself  the  guarantee  of  im- 
mortal life.  A  sacred  meal  was  part  of  the  Mithra 
mystery  also,  and  there  bread  as  well  as  a  cup  of 
water  were  presented  with  prayers  of  consecration.* 
The  old  Christian  apologists  found  these  analogies  so 
striking  that  they  believed  them  explicable  only  as 
imitation  or  prophetic  anticipation  of  the  Christian 
sacraments  through  demonic  agency.  The  histor- 
ical viewpoint  finds  a  simple  explanation :  Paul,  and 
perhaps  the  heathen  Christians  of  Antioch  before 
him,  sought  new  forms  of  worship  in  order  to  sepa- 

*  Cp.  page  158  and  my  "  Christusbild,"  pages  79  to  90. 

182 


The  Apostle  Paul 

rate  their  Christian  faith  from  Judaism,  and  involun- 
tarily they  incorporated  somewhat  of  the  rites  and 
ideas  of  their  heathen  surroundings.  That  the 
magical  idea  of  the  material  mediation  of  spiritual 
activities  slipped  in,  was  inevitable  where  the  ani- 
mistic world-view  was  so  general  and  so  predomi- 
nant; and  it  is  not  surprising  that  Paul's  thought 
shows  traces  of  it,*  while  the  post-apostolic  Church 
takes  it  up  more  largely.  But  it  remains  ever  true, 
that  Paul  made  these  traditional  forms  the  expres- 
sion of  deep  and  genuinely  Christian  thoughts :  the 
baptism  was  a  symbol  of  that  fundamental  of  Chris- 
tian ethics,  "  Die  and  become !  "  the  Lord's  Supper 
a  service  of  remembrance  of  the  death  of  Jesus  and 
a  pledge  of  divine-human  love,  uniting  the  members 
with  the  head  and  with  one  another, — how  far  above 
all  heathen  mysteries  do  these  stand!  The  spirits 
of  the  demons,  the  wildness  of  the  orgies,  the  nat- 
uralistic licentiousness,  blind  superstition — these  dis- 
appeared before  the  spirit  of  the  Master,  who  is 
freedom  and  love. 

More  important  than  the  heathen  were  the  Jewish 
influences  on  the  theology  of  Paul.  ^Ve  met  them 
before  in  the  juristic  theory  of  the  vicarious  atone- 
ment of  Christ  and  justification  on  that  ground. 
But  they  have  a  particularly  strong  influence  over 
Paul's  view  of  the  beginning,  course  and  end  of 

*  Such  is  the  custom  of  the  Corinthians  (not  reproved  by  Paul),  of 
performing  baptism  in  favor  of  the  dead  (I  Cor.  15,  29)  ;  also,  the 
idea  of  the  physical  harmfulness,  even  deadly  effect  of  unworthy  par- 
ticipation in  the  Lord's  Supper  (I  Cor.  11,  29  seq.). 

183 


Christian  Origins 

human  history.  Jewish  theology  before  Paul  had 
taught  that  by  Adam's  fall,  sin  and  death  had  come 
into  the  world  and  caused  the  subjugation  of  the 
whole  human  race  to  these  demonic  powers.  Paul 
agrees  with  the  author  of  the  "  Wisdom  of  Solo- 
mon "  in  judging  heathenism  as  childish  ignorance, 
inexcusable  desertion  from  a  recognized  God  whose 
wrathful  judgment  will  punish  the  heathen.  Abra- 
ham was  justified  on  account  of  his  faith  and  became 
the  father  of  all  believers,  that  is,  not  only  of  the  Jews 
but — Paul  added — of  faithful  heathen  (Christians), 
Through  the  mediation  of  angels,  the  Law  was  given 
to  Moses — a  Jewish  legend  from  which  Paul  draws 
the  conclusion  that  the  Law  is  of  less  importance 
than  the  prophecies.  Although  the  Law  in  itself 
was  sacred  and  had  been  given  as  a  means  to  life, 
yet  in  reality  it  had  proven  to  be  no  more  than  a 
death-dealing  letter,  incapable  of  overcoming  sin  and 
tending  to  increase  it.  Here  the  Pharisaic  deifica- 
tion of  the  Law  turns  in  Paul  into  the  extreme  oppo- 
site judgment.  He  does  not  regard  the  Law  as  a 
means  of  moral  education,  but  as  a  despotic  jailer 
and  disciplinarian,  who  is  to  hold  men  in  the  misery 
of  sin  until  the  hour  of  release  when  Christ  appears. 
Christ  is  the  end  of  the  Law  and  the  fulfillment  of 
the  prophecy. 

Those  Jews  who  will  not  acknowledge  this  but 
seek  their  righteousness  as  before  in  the  paths  of 
the  Law,  they  show  themselves  by  that  disobedience 
to  the  saving  will  of  God  to  be  such  as  He  has 

»     184 


The  Apostle  Paul 

blinded  and  hardened  in  order  to  reject  them  and 
substitute  the  heathens  in  their  stead  as  the  heirs 
to  the  prophecies.  By  applying  the  doctrine  of  pre- 
destination (taught  in  the  Pharisaic  schools)  against 
the  Jews  instead  of  against  the  heathens  as  was  cus- 
tomary, Paul  interprets  the  experience  of  his  time 
as  an  effect  of  the  providential  plan  of  God,  who  by 
free  choice  shows  mercy  to  one  (the  heathen)  and 
rejects  the  other  (the  Jew).  Yet  he  consoles  him- 
self with  the  hope  that  this  rejection  of  his  people 
is  not  final,  but  that  after  the  heathen  have  entered 
into  the  realm  of  Christ,  the  Jews  will  some  time 
follow  their  example.  Then  the  end  of  time  will 
have  come:  Christ  and  all  his  saints  will  be  seen 
descending  from  heaven,  the  sleeping  Christians  will 
rise  from  the  dead,  the  survivors  will  be  moved 
toward  him  into  space  and  then  will  follow  the  great 
Judgment  Day.  Christ  and  God  himself  will  be  the 
judges,  the  Christians  will  be  the  witnesses,  the 
world  and  the  angels  will  be  judged.  The  manner 
of  procedure  at  the  judgment  is  in  harmony  with 
Jewish  tradition :  the  judicial  retribution  of  reward 
and  punishment  according  to  the  measure  of  the 
works  of  each.  One  question  remains  unanswered : 
How  does  the  judicial  verdict  stand  toward  the  jus- 
tifying verdict  of  grace  on  believers? 

Alongside  this  Jewish-Pharisaic  doctrine  of  the 
end  of  all  things,  we  find  in  Paul  the  Hellenic  hope 
(not  unknown  to  the  apocalyptic  writings)  of  a 
blessed  life  of  pious  souls  immediately  after  death, 

185 


Christian  Origins 

independent  of  the  resurrection;  this  thought  grew 
in  importance  for  him  when  bitter  experiences  made 
it  doubtful  whether  he  would  live  to  see  the  realiza- 
tion of  his  former  hope  of  the  return  of  Christ.  It 
is  not  clear  how  this  bliss  of  the  individual  pious 
souls  beyond  harmonizes  with  the  resurrection  of 
bodies  which  is  to  follow  the  end  of  the  world  and 
the  Judgment  Day.  Equally  uncertain  are  the  an- 
swers to  the  questions:  whether  Paul  expected  a 
series  of  resurrections;  after  the  Christians  had  been 
resurrected,  was  there  to  be  a  resurrection  of  all 
men  ?  Whether  there  was  to  be  an  earthly  kingdom 
of  Christ  between  Christ's  return  and  the  end  of  the 
world  (the  "  chiliastic  kingdom  "  of  the  Apocalypse 
of  John)  ?  Again,  how  he  thought  concerning  the 
subordination  of  Christ  to  the  Father  after  all  the 
powers  inimical  to  God  had  been  overcome?  Finally, 
whether  the  last  goal,  that  **  God  is  all  in  all  "  pre- 
supposed the  conversion  of  the  godless  ("  universal 
return  ")  or  their  utter  destruction?  whether,  along- 
side the  bliss  of  the  elect,  the  destruction  of  the  re- 
jected will  continue  as  eternal  misery?  This  ob- 
scurity of  the  end  of  all  things  is  involved  in  the 
nature  of  the  problem,  and  it  is  to  the  Apostle's 
honor  that  he  did  not  enter  into  such  detail  in  his 
forecast  of  the  beyond  as  did  the  Orphic  and  Jewish 
apocalyptic  writers,  but,  satisfied  not  to  know,  he 
found  peace  in  the  pious  hope :  '*  What  no  eye  hath 
seen  and  no  ear  hath  heard,  what  ne'er  hath  entered 
into  human  heart,  that  hath  God  in  store  for  those 
who  love  Him." 

i86 


The  Apostle  Paul 

It  is  self -understood  that  a  theology  made  up  of 
so  many  and  such  varied  elements  as  that  of  Paul, 
was  not  fully  developed  at  once  in  the  soul  of  the 
originator;  from  the  beginning,  his  view  of  Christ 
may  have  been  fixed  at  the  time  of  his  conversion, 
but  the  further  developments  were,  without  doubt, 
conditioned  by  the  needs  of  his  missionary  activity 
as  they  arose,  partly  in  his  controversies  with  Jew- 
ish opponents,  partly  in  consideration  of  the  religious 
ideas  and  ceremonial  customs  of  the  heathen,  who 
became  converted  to  Christ.  It  is  doubtful  whether, 
after  his  conversion,  Paul  immediately  undertook 
the  missionary  work  among  the  heathen;  his  ques- 
tion (Gal.  5,  ii)  "if  I  still  preach  circumcision, 
why  am  I  still  persecuted?  "  seems  to  point  to  the 
fact  that  for  a  time  he  did  his  missionary  work 
along  the  Jewish  lines  of  the  older  Apostles.  This 
would  be  the  simplest  explanation  why  his  fourteen 
years  of  missionary  activity  in  Syria  and  Cilicia  were 
not  frowned  upon  by  the  Jewish  congregations  of 
Palestine,  but,  on  the  contrary,  occasioned  joy  and 
thanks  to  God,  as  he  testifies  in  Gal.  i,  21  seq. 

In  any  event,  so  much  is  certain,  that  not  Paul, 
but  several  unknown  men  from  Cyprus  and  Cyrene 
converted  the  first  heathen-Christians  at  Antioch 
(Acts  II,  20).  Barnabas  induced  Paul,  who  was 
at  his  home  in  Tarsus,  to  come  to  Antioch,  and  the 
united  activity  of  the  two  produced  such  good  re- 
sults that  a  great  number  of  heathens  joined  the 
congregation  during  the  year.     In  this  mixed  con- 

X87 


Christian  Origins 

gregation  the  fact  was  manifest  for  the  first  time, 
that  Christianity  is  a  reUgion  with  distinguish- 
ing characteristics,  differentiating  it  from  Judaism; 
then,  for  the  first  time,  the  new  name  "  Christians  " 
was  used  to  designate  the  behevers  in  Jesus.  (Acts 
II,  25  seq.)  This  report  deserves  more  considera- 
tion than  it  has  received  hitherto;  it  is  the  more  re- 
liable, because  it  is  probably  original  in  the  diary 
of  Luke's  journeys;*  and  because  the  latter  was  a 
native  of  Antioch,  probably  one  of  the  heathen-Chris- 
tian converts  made  by  Paul.  The  use  of  the  Chris- 
tian name  in  Antioch  is  indubitable  testimony  that 
the  thing  itself,  viz. :  Christianity  as  a  new  religion 
differing  from  Judaism  as  well  as  from  heathenism, 
came  into  being  for  the  first  time  at  Antioch  as  the 
fruit  of  Paul's  activity  there.  As  a  religious  com- 
munity, the  Christian  congregation  could  only  be 
distinguished  if  it  ceased  to  maintain  the  Jewish 
customs  and  supplanted  them  by  new  and  distin- 
guishing ones.  But  religious  ceremonies  cannot  be 
created  from  nothing,  they  always  follow  something 
already  existing:  where  else  could  the  mixed  con- 
gregation take  their  peculiar  non- Jewish  ceremonies, 
which  would  distinguish  them  as  the  new  religious 
community  of  "  Christians,"  if  not  from  their 
heathen  environment?  Here,  for  the  first  time, 
those  mystical  rites  were  taken  into  the  customary 

*  Their  characteristic  form  of  narration  in  the  first  person  plural 
is  found  first  in  an  old  text  in  the  course  of  that  report  about  the  con- 
gregation, at  Antioch  (Acts  11,  28). 

188 


The  Apostle  Paul 

divine  worship  of  Christianity,  and  Paul  brought 
them  into  inner  connection  with  the  Christian  faith 
by  his  theological  interpretation  (see  pp.  175,  181). 
seq.).  Here,  for  the  first  time,  it  is  likely  that  the 
belief  in  the  resurrection  of  Christ  was  cast  in  its 
final  mould  as  the  evangelical  Easter  legend;  par- 
ticularly, the  dating  of  the  resurrection  "  on  the 
third  day"  (or  "after  three  days")  which  Paul 
found  there  (I  Cor.  15,  4)  and  which  he  could  not 
have  heard  from  the  early  Apostles,*  finds  simplest 
explanation :  the  heathen-Christians  of  Antioch  con- 
tinued their  popular  celebration  of  the  resurrection 
of  Adonis  ("the  master")  as  an  old  habit,  but 
transferred  the  worship  to  the  new  master,  Christ. f 
Granted  that  these  are  only  suppositions  which 
cannot  be  proven  strictly  because  the  sources  are 
scanty,  yet  for  those  accustomed  to  judge  these 
things  from  a  religious-historical  viewpoint,  they 
have  great  probability  in  their  favor.     So  much  is 

*  Inasmuch  as  the  first  Christ  visions  occurred  in  Galilee,  they  could 
not  possibly  have  taken  place  so  soon  after  the  death  of  Jesus  ;  the 
Evangelical  form  of  the  Easter  legend  can  not  therefore  be  based 
on  the  testimony  of  the  early  Apostles,  but  must  have  some  other 
origin,  whether  the  one  given  above  or  any  other  be  presupposed. 

f  The  existence  of  the  closely-related  cults  of  Adonis,  Osiris  and 
Attis  alongside  one  another  caused  the  variation  in  the  Syrian  resur- 
rection celebration  between  the  second,  third  and  fourth  day  after 
the  death  of  the  god  (page  175).  Perhaps  this  contains  the  histor- 
ical explanation  for  the  variations  of  the  Christian  Easter  legend,  be- 
tween "  on  the  third  day"  and  "  after  three  days."  The  part  played 
by  the  women  in  the  Gospel  narratives  of  Easter  (a  part  unknown  to 
Paul)  may  find  its  explanation  in  the  Syrian  Adonis-celebration,  in 
which  the  women  played  the  leading  roles. 

189 


Christian  Origins 

certain:  Christianity,  as  a  new  religion  presenting 
itself  in  church  forms  of  a  nature  characteristic  to 
it  alone,  did  not  have  its  origin  in  Jerusalem,  but  in 
the  Syrian  capital,  Antioch. 

How  did  the  mother-congregation  stand  toward 
the  new  turn  of  affairs  at  Antioch?  Serious  sus- 
picions arose  against  a  Christianity  without  the  Jew- 
ish Law  and  against  the  reception  of  Christ-believ- 
ing heathens  in  the  fraternity  of  the  Jewish  Messiah 
Jesus.  Several  members  of  the  congregation  from 
Judaea,  men  who  had  been  Pharisees  and  therefore 
still  eager  for  the  Law,  believed  that  they  could  not 
permit  the  continuance  of  such  activity  as  that  of 
the  Apostle  to  the  heathen  and  betook  themselves 
to  Antioch,  to  watch  these  rising  free  customs  and 
to  suppress  them.  The  agitation  of  these  "  false 
brethren  privily  brought  in,"  as  Paul  calls  them  (Gal. 
2,  4),  caused  no  little  excitement  in  the  mixed  con- 
gregation of  Antioch,  particularly  as  these  people 
stood  for  the  dignity  of  the  mother-church.  Had 
the  Law-party  succeeded  in  obtaining  their  demand 
that  the  Messiah-believing  heathen  must  submit  to 
the  Jewish  law  of  circumcision,  and  had  it  been  con- 
firmed that  the  mother-church  and  the  early  Apos- 
tles were  on  their  side,  then  a  successful  outcome 
of  the  mission  to  the  heathen  masses  was  not  to  be 
thought  of;  the  Jewish  ceremonial  Law  would  have 
become  an  insuperable  barrier  for  the  conversion  of 
the  heathen  to  the  Christian  faith.  If  the  demands 
of   the   Judaizers   had   been   ignored   without   the 

190 


The  Apostle  Paul 

achievement  of  a  peaceable  understanding  with  the 
early  Apostles,  the  tie  between  Heathen  Christianity 
and  Jewish  Christianity  would  have  been  torn  and 
the  former  would  have  been  lowered  into  a  sect,  dis- 
sociated from  the  historical  origin  of  the  messianic 
movement  and  scarcely  able  to  survive.  In  this 
difficult  situation,  Paul  decided  to  break  the  crisis 
in  the  most  direct  and  most  risky  way,  by  a  personal 
discussion  of  the  case  with  the  mother-congregation 
and  her  leaders.  We  have  a  twofold  report  of  this 
memorable  apostolic  meeting  (which  ought  not  be 
titled  *' apostolic  council"):  Paul's  own  report  in 
Galatians  2  and  the  other  in  Acts  15.  The  latter 
differs  in  part  and  is  less  reliable,  but  both  agree  on 
the  main  point. 

When  Paul  made  the  report  of  his  missionary 
activity  and  his  success  in  the  heathen  world  to  the 
assembled  congregation  at  Jerusalem,  the  party  to 
which  the  agitators  and  "  the  false  brothers  "  who 
had  privily  entered  Antioch  belonged,  demanded 
that  the  converted  heathens  should  be  made  Jews  by 
circumcision.  In  order  to  establish  a  precedent,  they 
insisted  on  the  immediate  circumcision  of  Titus,  the 
heathen  who  accompanied  Paul.  Lively  disputes 
resulted,  for  the  eager  ones  had  a  number  of  com- 
rades in  the  congregation  who  could  not  reconcile 
themselves  to  the  thought  that  in  future  they  would 
have  to  acknowledge  lawless  heathens  as  brothers  in 
the  Christian  faith,  men  upon  whom  they  had  hith- 
erto looked   down  as   sinners   and   unclean.      But 

191 


Christian  Origins 

Jacobus,  Peter  and  John,  the  three  leaders  of  the 
congregation  who  were  considered  its  "  pillars," 
could  not  escape  the  imposing  impression  made  upon 
them  by  the  reports  of  the  success  of  the  heathen 
missions;  they  regarded  it  as  the  sanctioning  judg- 
ment of  God  on  Paul's  work,  which  none  should 
dare  to  oppose.  They  accepted  the  proffered  hand 
of  fellowship  and  agreed  to  a  peace  with  Paul  and 
Barnabas,  by  which  Paul  was  to  continue  his  work 
among  the  heathen,  while  Peter  and  the  other  early 
apostles  should  turn  to  the  Jews.  Paul's  promise 
to  make  collections  in  the  heathen  congregations  for 
the  poor  of  Judaea  may  have  done  something  toward 
mitigating  the  scruples  of  Jewish  conservatism. 
Thus  Paul  happily  attained  his  immediate  object, 
the  apostolic  recognition  of  a  Heathen  Christianity, 
free  from  the  Law,  and  that  was  without  doubt  a 
priceless  gain  for  the  continuance  of  his  missionary 
work.  Naturally,  this  agreement  had  been  reached 
by  evading  the  question  of  principle  involved, 
namely,  the  relation  of  the  Christian  faith  to  the 
Jewish  Law.  The  treaty  of  peace  was  no  more  than 
a  compromise,  giving  each  party  the  right  to  his  own 
opinion,  but  agreeing  that  each  party  should  not  dis- 
turb the  other  in  its  particular  field.  A  real  harmony 
of  Heathen  Christianity  free  from  the  Law  and 
Jewish  Christianity  loyal  to  the  Law  had  not  been 
achieved  thereby;  so  long  as  the  Jewish  Law  re- 
mained in  force  for  the  Jewish  Christians — and  the 
congregation  had  not  the  slightest  notion  of  depart- 

193 


The  Apostle  Paul 

ing  therefrom — it  remained  a  wall  of  separation  be- 
tween them  and  the  heathen-Christians,  making  a 
peaceful  congregational  life  impossible  in  mixed  con- 
gregations and  leading  ever  to  new  troubles. 

Shortly  afterward,  this  became  apparent.  When 
Paul  and  Barnabas  returned  from  their  missionary 
journey*  through  Cyprus  and  South  Galatia  (  Pisidia 
and  Lycaonia)  to  Antioch,  they  found  the  congre- 
gation wrought  up  by  new  excitement.  Peter  had 
come  to  visit  Antioch,  and,  in  the  beginning,  he  took 
part  in  the  freer  customs  prevalent  among  the  Jew- 
ish-Christians;  but  when  several  partisans  of  Ja- 
cobus, who  was  for  strict  legality,  arrived,  he  per- 
mitted himself  to  be  so  intimidated  that  he  withdrew 
from  fraternal  intercourse  and  table-companionship 
with  the  heathen-Christians.  The  other  Jewish- 
Christians  followed  his  example,  and  the  retrograde 
movement  to  Jewish  unfreedom  soon  took  on  such 
proportions  that  the  moral  pressure  threatened  the 
continuance  of  the  newly-acquired  freedom  of  the 
heathen-Christians.  The  extent  of  the  danger  at 
this  critical  moment  is  evident,  for  even  Barnabas, 
the  friend  and  co-worker  of  Paul  in  the  missions, 
was  carried  away  by  the  general  pusillanimous  mood 
and  reactionary  tendency  and  forsook  his  former  free 
way  of  thinking.     Then  Paul  could  be  silent  no 

*  Acts  13  and  14  reports  it  before  the  Apostle-day  at  Jerusalem 
(Chap.  15).  Probably  it  did  not  take  place  until  after ^  and  this 
changing  about  is  to  be  explained  by  the  same  pragmatical  motives 
of  the  author  as  are  involved  in  Jesus'  sermon  at  Nazareth,  Luke  4, 
16  seq.  =  Mark  6,  i  seq. 

193 


Christian  Origins 

longer;  publicly  he  appeared  against  Peter  and  re- 
proached him,  saying  that  his  attitude  was  hypo- 
critical, in  contradiction  with  the  truth  of  the  Gos- 
pel, in  fact,  that  it  was  a  denial  of  the  Christian  be- 
lief, "  for  if  righteousness  is  through  the  law,  then 
Christ  died  for  nought."     (Gal.  2,  21.) 

With  this  rejection  on  principle  of  such  a  Chris- 
tianity as  would  like  to  remain  legal  Judaism,  Paul 
broke  with  the  Jewish-Christians  of  Palestine;  it 
was  a  breach  which  never  was  healed  and  never 
could  be  healed,  because  the  two  contradictory  prin- 
ciples were  unharmonizable.  Paul's  opponents  made 
answer;  they  actually  carried  on  a  counter-mission 
in  Paul's  congregations  with  the  avowed  purpose  of 
inducing  them  to  desert  the  Apostle  to  the  Heathen 
and  win  them  over  to  the  Law-abiding  Christianity 
of  the  early  Apostles.  The  extent  of  the  confusion 
which  the  Judaistic  agitation  caused  in  several  of 
the  congregations,  the  tribulations  of  Paul  which 
resulted  from  their  work,  this  is  shown  by  the  Epis- 
tles of  Paul  to  the  Galatians  and  the  second  to  the 
Corinthians.  His  manner  of  defense  against  his 
opponents  reveals  clearly  the  methods  of  the  latter. 
Above  all  they  sought  to  undermine  Paul's  apostolic 
authority,  by  pointing  out  that  he  was  not  a  direct 
pupil  of  Jesus  and  that  therefore  Paul's  knowledge 
of  his  life  and  teachings  could  have  been  acquired 
solely  from  the  traditions  of  the  early  Apostles  and 
hence  he  was  bound  to  their  authority;  since  the 
early  Apostles,  following  the  example  of  Jesus,  held 

194 


The  Apostle  Paul 

fast  to  the  Law  of  Moses,  Paul's  doctrine  teaching 
the  contrary  could  not  be  true.  When  Paul  cited 
his  vision  of  Christ,  his  opponents  declared  this  to 
be  the  imagining  of  a  conceited  man,  whose  word 
could  not  be  trusted,  who  was  looking  for  personal 
glory  and  shaped  his  speech  to  please  his  hearer. 
At  Corinth,  his  opponents  went  so  far  in  their  per- 
sonal hatred  as  to  question  Paul's  honesty  in  the 
matter  of  collections. 

They  also  introduced  positive  reasons  against 
Paul's  doctrines,  basing  them  on  the  Jewish-legal 
viewpoint:  to  the  seed  of  Abraham  alone  had  the 
messianic  prophecies  been  made,  for  them  the  ful- 
fillment of  the  Law  of  Moses.  In  order  to  weaken 
this  objection,  Paul  employed  all  the  art  of  his  rab- 
binical dialectics;  for  example,  that  "  the  seed  "  of 
Abraham  being  used  in  the  singular  meant  Christ, 
hence  the  prophecy  applied  from  the  beginning  to 
him  and  his  congregation;  again,  because  the  Law 
was  handed  down  centuries  later  than  the  prophecy 
and  then  not  directly  by  God,  but  through  mediating 
angels,  its  position  was  subordinate  and  it  could  not 
be  a  limiting  condition  of  participation  in  the  messi- 
anic salvation.  It  is  easy  to  think  that  such  argu- 
ments (Gal.  3)  carried  little  weight  with  his  Jewish 
opponents;  but  we  must  credit  them  to  the  difficult 
situation  in  which  the  Apostle  was  placed,  for  out 
of  the  Law  which  he  considered  a  divine  revelation 
as  much  as  his  opponents  did,  he  was  forced  to  prove 
the  abrogation  of  the  Law  through  Christ. 

195 


Christian  Origins 

The  Judaistic  party  also  urged  the  moral  objec- 
tion, that  with  the  abrogation  of  the  positive  Law  all 
the  reins  of  decency  and  order  would  be  cut,  the  flesh 
would  be  free  to  revel  in  sin,  and  in  the  end,  Christ 
would  be  degraded  as  the  instigator  of  sin.  Added 
weight  was  given  to  this  reproach  by  the  fact  that 
the  moral  life  of  the  heathen-Christians  was  far 
from  what  it  should  have  been.  In  all  of  his  epis- 
tles, Paul  took  pains  to  emphasize  especially  the 
ethical  complement  to  his  doctrine  of  freedom  from 
the  Law :  that  the  followers  of  Christ  have  crucified 
their  flesh  with  its  passions  and  desires  (in  the  bap- 
tism), and  therefore  they  must  consider  themselves 
as  such  who  are  dead  to  sin,  and  may  live  no  longer 
for  sin,  actually  as  such  who  live  in  the  spirit  and 
are  in  duty  bound  to  walk  in  and  after  the  spirit, 
to  give  evidence  of  their  spiritual  possessions  by 
morally  good  fruit.  (Gal.  5,  13-25;  Rom.  6.)  In 
this  respect,  thanks  are  due  to  the  Judaistic  party 
inasmuch  as  their  attacks  on  the  Apostle  were  the 
means  of  bringing  to  light,  in  varied  and  new  forms, 
the  higher  truth  and  regenerating  force  of  the  spir- 
itual law  as  against  the  mere  law  of  the  letter.  We 
owe  to  this  struggle,  also,  the  knowledge  of  the  deeps 
of  the  Apostle's  soul ;  we  see  a  passionate  tempera- 
ment often  running  over  in  an  anger  not  always 
free  from  bitterness  and  injustice  toward  his  oppo- 
nent; but  such  human  frailties  are  far  outweighed 
by  the  heroic  greatness  of  the  man,  whose  whole  life 
is  wrapped  up  in  the  sublime  work,  to  which  God 

196 


The  Apostle  Paul 

had  called  him;  the  man,  who  feels  himself  free 
from  the  ties  of  mortal  needs  and  yet  sympathizes  so 
heartily  and  feels  so  keenly  with  all  of  those  whose 
salvation  rests  as  a  burden  upon  his  soul,  the  man 
whose  enthusiastic  courage  dares  to  set  the  highest 
goals  and  yet  chooses  his  means  of  attaining  them 
with  such  deliberation  and  wisdom,  who  knows  how 
to  treat  men  and  sees  the  difficulties  of  every  situa- 
tion. 

Let  us  accompany  Paul  for  a  little  on  that  great 
missionary  journey  which  he  undertook  soon  after 
the  conflict  at  Antioch.  He  hurried  through  the 
scenes  of  his  preceding  journey,  but  "the  spirit*' 
gives  him  rest  nowhere.  An  irresistible  force  which, 
in  view  of  the  European  shores,  takes  on  the  form 
of  a  welcoming  dream-vision,  drives  him  out  to  the 
far  West,  to  the  cities  of  the  Greeks,  where  he  might 
hope  that  the  ill-sounding  voices  of  the  narrow  world 
of  Palestine  could  not  possibly  be  heard.  The  Eu- 
ropean journey  followed  the  great  commercial  and 
military  highroad,  along  the  shore  through  Philippi, 
Thessalonica,  Berea,  Athens  to  Corinth,  where  the 
Apostle  remained  for  a  year  and  a  half;  from  there, 
he  moved  to  Ephesus,  where  he  was  active  for  two 
years ;  then  he  returned  to  Corinth  for  a  stay  of  six 
months,  until  he  left  to  carry  his  collection  for  the 
poor  of  Judasa  to  Jerusalem  (probably  in  the  year 
59  or  60)  ;  his  arrest  there  by  the  Romans  put  an 
end  to  his  missionary  journeys.    According  to  the 

197 


Christian  Origins 

account  in  the  Acts,  he  used  to  preach  in  the  syna- 
gogue of  every  town  in  which  there  was  a  Jewish 
colony,  and  not  until  the  Jews  turned  a  deaf  ear  to 
him,  did  he  make  appeal  to  the  heathen;  this  inter- 
pretation, according  to  which  the  mission  to  the 
heathen  was  not  the  main  object  of  the  Apostle  to 
the  heathen,  but  which  makes  circumstances  force 
that  mission  upon  him,  accords  less  with  reality  than 
with  the  author's  peculiar  anti-Jewish,  pragmatical 
view  of  history.  Aside  from  the  incorrectness  of 
the  motive  given,  the  fact  itself  is  not  to  be  con- 
troverted, that  Paul  always  allied  his  missionary  ac- 
tivity to  the  synagogues  of  the  Jewish  Dispersion; 
there  he  found  the  heathen-Jewish  co-religionists 
together,  and  by  them  his  sermon  was  most  readily 
taken  up. 

The  suitability  of  this  method  of  procedure  is  so 
apparent,  that  we  would  consider  it  the  most  prob- 
able, even  if  there  were  no  report  in  the  Acts.  The 
most  favorable  soil  for  Paul's  missionary  teaching 
was  not  among  the  pure  Jews,  to  whom  the  idea  of 
a  crucified  Messiah  was  revolting,  nor  among  the 
pure  heathens  to  whom  such  an  idea  was  foolish- 
ness, something  incomprehensible,  because  all  the 
presuppositions  for  an  understanding  thereof  were 
lacking;  the  most  favorable  soil  was  among  the 
Heathen-Jewish  comrades  ("the  worshippers  of 
God")  who  had  acquired  a  certain  knowledge  of 
the  Old  Testament  belief  in  God  and  Israel's  messi- 
anic hopes  through  their  participation  in  the  syna- 

198 


The  Apostle  Paul 

gogal  service,  and  yet  were  not  biased  by  national 
and  legal  prejudices  of  Judaism.  At  his  home  in 
Tarsus,  Paul  had  learned  to  know  this  class;  he 
knew  their  serious  rehgious  attitude,  their  longing 
for  a  morally  pure  religion,  their  strong  sympathy 
with  the  Psalmists'  and  Prophets'  belief  in  God  and 
providence,  but  he  knew,  too,  their  antipathy  against 
Jewish  national  pride  and  the  poor  formalism  of  the 
rabbinic  worship  of  the  Law.  How  to  overcome 
this  limitation,  how  to  save  this  mass  of  salvation- 
seeking  heathens  and  win  them  for  God?  This 
question  may  have  occupied  him  often  as  a  Jew  of 
Tarsus,  but  he  had  the  answer  as  an  Apostle  of 
Christ,  in  whom  there  is  neither  Jew  nor  Greek, 
but  a  new  creation.  Now  he  might  become  a  Greek 
for  the  Greeks  without  interruption  of  his  inter- 
course with  them  through  Jewish  legal  scruples,  and 
he  could  be  a  Greek  to  them  because  he  was  ac- 
quainted with  their  method  of  thinking  and  under- 
stood their  language. 

Concerning  the  manner  of  the  mission-sermon  of 
the  Apostle,  we  can  offer  only  suppositions  based 
on  conclusions  drawn  from  his  epistles,  for  the 
speeches  attributed  to  him  in  the  Acts  cannot  lay 
any  claim  to  authenticity;  they  are  as  certainly  the 
composition  of  the  historian  as  those  speeches  which 
the  writers  of  profane  history  in  ancient  times  at- 
tributed to  their  heroes  on  fitting  occasions — a  fact 
which  is  well-known  and  generally  conceded.  Even 
the  conclusions  drawn  from  the  epistles  must  be  at- 

199 


Christian  Origins 

tempted  with  care;  for,  in  the  nature  of  the  case, 
the  fundamental  proclamation  to  non-Jews  must 
have  treated  matters  more  fully  than  was  necessary 
in  letters  to  congregations  of  believers;  thus,  above 
all,  the  belief  in  one  good  God  and  Judge  of  the 
world  in  opposition  to  the  many  nature-gods,  which 
is  recalled  particularly  by  I  Thess.  i,  9  seq.  On 
the  other  hand,  such  theological  argumentation  as 
is  to  be  found  in  the  epistles  to  the  Galatians  and 
the  Romans,  occasioned  by  the  polemics  against  Jew- 
ish-Christianity, would  have  been  purposeless  in  a 
missionary  sermon  to  the  heathen. 

In  general,  it  must  be  conceded  that  the  apostolic 
missionary  sermon  contained  both  more  and  less 
than  is  to  be  found  in  the  epistles.  It  is  cer- 
tainly an  error  to  say,  as  has  recently  been  said  so 
frequently,  that  Paul  did  not  preach  his  dogmatic 
doctrine  of  salvation  in  his  missionary  sermon — an 
error  probably  based  on  the  anti-dogmatic  tendency 
of  the  present  day  rather  than  a  historical  under- 
standing of  first-century  conditions.  The  "  word  of 
the  cross  "  was  not  only  a  theological  doctrine  for 
Paul,  but  the  central  point  of  his  religion,  and  as 
such  it  is  natural  that  he  proclaimed  it  everywhere; 
so  he  reminds  the  Galatians  that  Jesus  Christ  was 
painted  before  their  eyes  as  the  crucified  one  (Gal. 
3,  i)  and  writes  to  the  Corinthians  (I,  i,  23  seq.)  : 
"  But  we  preach  Christ  crucified,  unto  Jews  a  stum- 
bling-block and  unto  Gentiles  a  foolishness,  but  unto 
them  that  are  called,  both  Jews  and  Greeks,  Christ 

200 


The  Apostle  Paul 

the  power  of  God  and  the  wisdom  of  God."  And 
we  should  not  forget  that  in  that  period  of  mystery- 
cults  and  Oriental  religious  mixtures,  it  was  just 
such  a  mystical  teaching  of  the  death  and  resurrec- 
tion of  the  Son  of  God  which  must  have  exerted  the 
greatest  magnetic  power  over  many.  Just  in  the 
circle  of  humble  folk  (I  Cor.  i,  26  seq.)  who  sought 
less  enlightenment  and  ethics  than  rescue  from  this 
wicked  world  and  a  guarantee  of  happiness  in  the 
future  world,  the  preaching  of  Paul  concerning  sal- 
vation achieved  its  greatest  success — a  success  which 
overshadowed  the  results  of  all  Jewish  and  Jewish- 
Christian  propaganda.  Hence  the  jealousy  and  en- 
mity which  characterized  the  attitude  of  the  Judaism 
of  the  Dispersion  toward  Paul  despite  its  compara- 
tive freedom  of  thought;  the  preacher  of  ethical 
monotheism  might  have  been  agreeable  to  them,  but 
the  word  of  the  cross  must  have  been  the  more 
a  stumbling-block  when  they  found  by  experience 
that  it  undermined  their  own  propaganda. 

Beside  the  message  of  salvation  in  the  death  and 
resurrection  of  Christ,  the  announcement  of  his  early 
return  to  save  his  own,  to  raise  the  dead  and  judge 
the  world  was  the  vital  point  in  Paul's  missionary 
sermon  and  it  was  the  most  effective  motive  both 
for  religious  consolation  and  hope  as  for  ethical  ad- 
monition and  warning.  In  many  variations  all  of 
the  Apostle's  letters  furnish  proof  of  this.  Because 
the  reappearance  of  the  Lord  is  nigh.  Christians 
should  have  no  fear  of  the  suffering  and  persecu- 

801 


Christian  Oriefins 


tion  which  they  now  must  bear,  but  should  walk  in 
a  manner  worthy  of  the  Lord,  remembering  that 
they  will  have  to  appear  before  his  judgment-seat 
and  that  those  who  persist  in  the  service  of  sin 
will  not  be  permitted  to  enter  his  kingdom.  How 
strongly  this  message  of  the  end  of  all  things  oc- 
cupied the  minds  of  the  young  congregation,  we  see 
by  the  detailed  discussion  which  Paul  devotes  to  it 
in  the  two  oldest  epistles  (I  Thess.  and  I  Cor.). 
The  religious  tendency  of  the  times  was  favorable 
to  this  message  regarding  resurrection  and  judg- 
ment; the  mystery-cults  everywhere  hinged  on  the 
acquisition  of  a  trustworthy  hope  of  eternal  life 
hereafter;  that  this  hope  was  bound  up  with  moral 
contingencies,  particularly  the  demand  for  personal 
purity  and  subjugation  of  the  senses  was  accepted 
as  a  current  conviction  by  the  more  serious  religious 
minds  among  the  heathens  of  that  day.  In  the  Apos- 
tle's sermon,  it  received  the  strongest  sanction  by 
joining  the  hope  and  the  demand  to  the  message  of 
the  death  and  resurrection  of  Christ ;  in  this  funda-,' 
mental  revelation  of  the  higher  world,  the  future 
life  of  bliss  seemed  to  appear  in  some  measure  as  a 
reality  and  therein  seemed  to  furnish  both  the  motive 
of  and  the  power  for  a  new  moral  life. 

The  immediate  success  of  the  mission  must  not 
be  overestimated  as  far  as  numbers  are  concerned; 
for  their  meetings,  a  private  house  sufficed,  such  as 
that  of  the  proselyte  Titius  Justus  at  Corinth,  or  a 
schoolroom,  such  as  that  of  the  philosopher  Tyran- 


202 


The  Apostle  Paul 

nus  at  Ephesus.  The  small  congregations  were 
mainly  made  up  of  people  of  the  lowest  classes: 
"  How  that  not  many  wise  after  the  flesh,  not  many 
mighty,  not  many  noble  are  called :  but  God  chose 
the  foolish  things  of  the  world,  that  he  might  put  to 
shame  them  that  are  wise ;  and  God  chose  the  weak 
things  of  the  world,  that  he  might  put  to  shame  the 
things  that  are  strong."  (I  Cor.  i,  26-28.)  This 
does  not  mean  to  say  that  there  were  not  several 
well-to-do  and  some  of  higher  social  standing  among 
them;  in  Corinth,  Crispus,  the  leader  of  the  syna- 
gogue, and  Erastus,  the  city-chamberlain,  belonged 
to  the  congregation-union. 

Some  have  compared  the  young  Christian  congre- 
gations with  the  Jewish  synagogue,  others  again, 
with  the  various  heathen  worshipping-societies;  in 
fact,  in  common  with  the  synagogue,  there  was  the 
meeting  for  worship  without  sacrificial  rites,  simply 
prayer,  scriptural  reading  and  edificatory  addresses ; 
in  common  with  the  latter  societies,  they  performed 
the  consecrating  service  of  the  sacraments  and  the 
religious  fraternal  meals.  But  what  differentiated 
them  essentially  from  both  was  the  absence  of  any 
external  organization;  there  were  no  regulations, 
no  leader  with  official  prerogatives,  no  common 
treasury,  no  obligation  on  the  part  of  the  members 
to  contribute  fixed  dues  and  no  other  communal 
duties  according  to  regulation.  Though  the  Acts 
tell  that  Paul  and  Barnabas  installed  a  "  presbyter  " 
as  the  regular  leader  of  the  newly-founded  congre- 

203 


Christian  Origins 

gations;  yet  by  this  the  writer  has  transferred  an 
institution  of  the  post-apostoHc  period  back  into  the 
days  of  the  Apostle,  according  to  whose  letters  no 
such  things  existed.  In  the  heathen-Christian  con- 
gregations of  the  Pauline  mission,  the  self-govern- 
ment of  the  single  congregations  is  so  palpable,  that 
it  excludes  any  government  by  professionals  and 
particularly  any  office  of  a  guiding  teacher — for 
there  was  no  other  teaching  in  the  congregation  than 
that  which  depended  on  individual  talent  and  the 
free  impulse  of  the  believers. 

The  hypothesis  of  a  governing  office  contradicts 
all  references  in  the  source-books.  Paul  always 
writes  to  the  entire  congregation;  even  where  he 
calls  upon  them  for  united  measures,  he  does  not 
employ  the  mediation  of  any  congregation-official. 
No  governing  office  is  as  yet  required  in  order  to 
achieve  the  unification  of  the  congregation ;  the  bind- 
ing tie  is  the  meeting  for  general  edification  and  for 
the  Lord's  Supper.  When  disorders  or  mistakes  oc- 
cur in  the  congregation,  the  Apostle  turns  to  the 
entire  congregation  with  his  demand  that  they  em- 
ploy gentle  or  sterner  correctives,  according  to  the 
circumstances  (Gal.  6,  i);  or  in  the  case  of  the 
grievous  sinner  who  gave  offense,  he  asked  exclu- 
sion from  the  brotherhood  by  all  gathered  together 
(I  Cor.  5,  3).  He  demands  that  difficulties  among 
the  members  concerning  property  be  referred  to  fra- 
ternal tribunals.  If  there  is  to  be  a  collection  for 
the  poor  of  Judaea,  each  member  voluntarily  gives 

304 


The  Apostle  Paul 

what  he  thinks  proper,  and  delegates,  elected  by  the 
entire  congregation,  are  deputed  to  bear  it  to  its  des- 
tination. It  is  true  that  Paul  often  speaks  of  "  those 
over  you,"  who  are  active  for  the  congregation  and 
who  are  to  be  held  in  love  for  the  sake  of  their  en- 
deavors ;  but  it  is  clearly  recognizable  that  no  legally 
settled  office  but  a  voluntary  performance  of  service 
is  meant  here,  a  labor  which  one,  generally  the  first 
convert,  as  Stephanas  in  Corinth,  had  taken  upon 
himself  for  the  care  of  their  common  affairs;  the 
Apostle  urges  that  these  services,  voluntarily  per- 
formed, entitle  the  volunteers  to  the  frank  and  grate- 
ful recognition  and  subordination  of  the  others.* 

As  yet,  everything  is  imbued  with  the  spirit  of 
freedom  and  of  love,  on  the  basis  of  mutual  fra- 
ternal assistance  and  admonition.  Because  the  en- 
thusiasm of  faith  and  of  love  inspired  all,  there 
seemed  to  be  no  need  of  external  forms  of  authority. 
There  was  no  thought  of  preparing  regulations  for 
the  future,  because  the  return  of  Christ  to  regenerate 
the  world  was  momentarily  expected;  hence,  there 
was  no  such  consideration  as  the  historical  develop- 
ment of  the  Church. 

The  first  epistle  to  the  Corinthians  affords  a  very 
vivid  picture  of  the  fresh  and  rich  life  created  by  the 
new  spirit  in  the  heathen-Christian  congregations, 
as  well  as  of  the  various  dangers  which  naturally 
accompanied  the  unbounded  enthusiasm.  At  the 
meetings  for  the  purpose  of  worship,  absolute  free- 

*  I  Thess.  5,  12  seq. ;   Rom.  12,  8;   I  Cor.  16,  15  seq. 

20$ 


Christian  Origins 

dom  of  speech  prevailed  and  every  one  contributed 
to  the  edification  of  the  congregation  according  to 
the  gift  with  which  the  spirit  graced  him :  one  in- 
toned a  psalm  or  hymn,  another  poured  forth  an 
instructive  address  relating  either  to  some  passage 
of  the  Old  Testament,  which  had  been  read  or  ex- 
planatory of  some  traditional  saying  of  the  Master; 
a  third,  inspired  to  prophecy,  would  proclaim  the 
revelation  which  had  come  to  him  concerning  the 
secrets  of  God's  plans,  the  affairs  of  the  future  or 
the  soul  of  man,  and  while  such  an  one  was  speak- 
ing, another  such  prophet  would  feel  himself  com- 
pelled to  utter  his  revelation ;  or  another,  "  speaking 
with  tongues,"  would  launch  forth  a  torrent  of  in- 
comprehensible words  and  sounds  in  his  ecstasy,  so 
that  a  stranger  might  get  the  impression  that  he  was 
mad.  Women  crowded  forward  to  pray  and  proph- 
esy, emphasizing  their  Christian  freedom  by  throw- 
ing off  the  veil  which  custom  demanded.  Thus,  the 
meetings  were  so  tumultuous  that  the  freedom 
threatened  to  degenerate  into  disorder. 

Though  the  Apostle  did  not  wish  to  dampen  ardor 
or  to  lessen  freedom,  yet  he  reminded  his  Corinthians 
that  God  was  a  God  of  order  and  that  the  spirits  of 
the  prophets  were  subject  to  the  prophets;  hence, 
many  should  not  speak  at  once  but  one  should  follow 
the  other  and  the  "  tongue-speaker  "  should  reserve 
his  ecstatic  monologue  until  he  or  his  neighbor  could 
add  thereto  a  sensible  edificatory  explanation.  As 
to  the  women,  when  they  appear  before  the  assem- 

906 


The  Apostle  Paul 

blage  for  prayer  or  prophecy,  they  should  don  their 
veils  as  a  sign  of  modesty;  unusual  as  it  was  in  the 
Greek  world  of  that  time,  Paul  did  not  forbid  the 
public  speaking  of  women.  The  passage  to  the 
contrary  (I  Cor.  14,  34  seq.)  was  probably  inserted 
by  a  later  writer. 

The  disorders  at  the  communion  celebration  had 
to  be  condemned  more  earnestly  than  these  exuber- 
ances of  enthusiasm.    It  had  not  yet  become  a  mere 
act  in  the  liturgy,  but  was  an  actual  meal  like  the 
"  bread-breaking "   of  the  early-congregation  and 
like  the  common  meal  of  the  Greek  societies,  except 
that  these  were  paid  for  out  of  a  common  treasury 
or  provided  by  an  individual  member,  whereas  the 
Christian  fraternal  meal  was  made  up  of  contribu- 
tions from  every  one.    It  happened  at  Corinth,  that") 
the  rich  did  not  wait  for  their  poorer  brethren  and ' 
divide  with  them,  but  they  ate  their  rich  food  in  ad-  \ 
vance  and  drank  heavily  while  the  poorer  ones  were  j 
hungry  and  ashamed.    The  Apostle  deems  it  an  un-  / 
worthy  eating  and  drinking,  a  sin  against  the  body 
and  blood  of  Christ  which  causes  the  report  that 
disease  and  death  have  visited  some  members  of  the 
congregation  as  a  result.     He  admonishes  them  to 
test  themselves  and  consider  the  meaning  of  the 
Lord's  Supper  as  contrasted  with  a  common  meal; 
further,  the  eating  which  is  to  satisfy  the  cravings 
of  hunger  should  be  done  at  home,  before  they  start 
for  the  meeting  of  the  congregation.     This  advice 
is  the  beginning  of  the  division  between  the  actual 

207 


Christian  Origins 

meal  and  a  sacramental  act;  besides,  the  connection 
between  the  two  grew  more  and  more  purposeless 
with  the  growth  of  the  congregation. 

The  moral  life  of  these  young  heathen-Christian 
congregations  showed  many  a  lack,  partly  the  after- 
effect of  old  heathen  customs,  partly  eccentric  ex- 
pressions of  the  new  spirit.  Some  thought  they 
might  participate  in  heathen  sacrificial  meals  with- 
out fear  because  they  knew  the  truth  about  heathen 
gods;  others  were  so  fearful  lest  they  might  stain 
themselves  by  unconsciously  eating  meat  which  had 
come  from  such  an  idolatrous  sacrifice,  that  they  for- 
bore all  meat-eating.  In  the  Roman  congregation, 
too,  there  were  ascetics  ( Paul  calls  them  "  the 
weak")  who,  by  reason  of  religious  scruples,  ab- 
stained from  meat  and  wine,  holdinjj  them  to  be  un- 
clean things,  dangerously  related  to  the  world  of 
demons.  Especially  marked  in  the  realm  of  sexual 
life  were  the  contrasts  between  riotous  freedom  and 
ascetic  unfreedom.  Some  desired  to  continue  the 
customary  Greek  laxity  in  sexual  matters  even  after 
they  had  become  Christians  and  based  their  conduct 
on  the  Apostle's  doctrine  of  Christian  freedom,  in- 
terpreting it  in  the  sense  that  "  everything  is  per- 
mitted," even  licentiousness.  Others  thought  that 
sexual  intercourse  was,  in  itself,  unclean  and  un- 
vi^orthy  of  a  Christian ;  hence.  Christians  should  not 
marry  and  those  already  married  should  cease  from 
marital  intercourse. 

The  Apostle  began  by  taking  a  bold  stand  against 

208 


The  Apostle  Paul 

the  lax  and  demanded  the  severance  of  all  fraternal 
ties  with  the  licentious;  he  admonished  the  Corin- 
thian Christian  regarding  the  dignity  of  a  Chris- 
tian personality,  whose  body  is  a  temple  of  the  holy 
spirit,  not  to  be  defiled  by  licentiousness.  Though 
personally  favoring  it,  he  rejected  the  opinion  of 
the  ascetics  that  celibacy  should  be  made  the  gen- 
eral rule,  but  rather  recommended  marriage  to  those 
who  did  not  possess  his  gift  of  abstinence;  he 
rejected  the  dissolution  of  marriages  with  non-Chris- 
tians, where  the  latter  did  not  dissolve  them;  in 
which  case,  the  Christian  was  no  longer  bound.  In 
such  wise.  Christian  custom  was  so  regulated  that 
the  purity  of  family  life  differentiated  the  congre- 
gation advantageously  from  the  immorality  of  its 
heathen  environment.  In  the  question  of  eating 
sacrificial  meats,  the  Apostle  took  a  similar  middle 
position  between  extremes :  he  agreed  with  the  ascet- 
ics in  their  conviction  that  nothing  was  unclean  in 
itself,  and  eating  or  abstaining  did  not  constitute  a 
Christian;  but  he  rejected  the  idea  of  Christian 
participation  in  heathen  sacrificial  meals,  and  ad- 
monished the  more  hberal-minded  not  to  put  aside 
the  considerations  of  brotherly  love  in  the  protec- 
tion of  the  weak  consciences,  when  they  employed 
the  freedom  to  which  they  were  entitled. 

A  serious  menace  to  budding  Christianity  was  the 
fanatical  radicalism,  which  was  inclined  to  conclude 
that  the  ideal  of  God's  kingdom  of  universal  brother- 
hood meant  the  rejection  of  all  existing  social  order. 

209 


Christian  Origins 

In  opposition  thereto,  the  Apostle  admonishes  Chris- 
tians (Rom.  13)  to  obey  existing  political  superiors 
as  a  divine  government;  for,  since  God  instituted 
such  governments  in  order  to  protect  the  good  and 
punish  the  wicked,  the  Christian  should  be  subject, 
not  through  fear  but  for  the  sake  of  conscience ;  he 
should  show  respect,  pay  taxes  and  act  as  a  peaceable 
citizen.  The  Roman  government  is  not  a  demonic 
phenomenon  and  an  object  of  fanatical  hatred  for 
Paul  as  it  had  been  for  the  Jewish  and  Christian 
apocalypse  writers,  but  it  represented  a  stage  in  the 
moral  world-government  and  as  such  became  an 
object  of  conscientious  regard. 

Naturally,  such  high  esteem  of  the  legal  proce- 
dure of  the  state  accords  but  little  with  the  word 
forbidding  Christians  to  appeal  to  earthly  courts  (I 
Cor.  6,  I  seq. ) ,  on  the  ground  that  it  is  beneath  the 
dignity  of  those  who  are  to  judge  the  world  and  the 
angels,  to  look  for  judgment  to  heathens ;  either,  they 
should  suffer  injury  in  silence  or  litigate  before  a 
tribunal  of  their  own  brethren.  As  Christians,  Paul 
advises  them  to  recognize  slavery  as  an  existing  po- 
litical institution,  a  worldly  relation  of  the  occupa- 
tion, which  is  not  changeable  even  by  divine  election 
to  the  congregation ;  the  consciousness  that  the  slave 
is  a  freedman  of  the  Lord  and  that  the  free  man 
is  a  slave  of  Christ,  should  be  so  elevating  as  to 
make  the  social  relation  of  service  a  matter  of  indif- 
ference (T  Cor.  7,  20  seq.)  ;  as  to  the  rest,  masters 
should  be  human  and  brotherly  in  their  treatment  of 

210 


The  Apostle  Paul 

slaves,  act  justly  and  properly  toward  them,  remem- 
bering that  they,  too,  have  a  master  in  heaven  (  Phile- 
mon i6.  Col.  3,  22).  This  attitude  toward  slavery 
was  similar  to  that  assumed  by  the  Stoics — a  recog- 
nition of  ^the  existing  legal  institution,  making  mild 
its  severity  from  the  viewpoint  of  the  ideal  equality 
of  human  rights — naturally,  this  contradiction  be- 
tween idea  and  reality  was  demanded  by  the  circum- 
stances of  the  age,  but  it  could  not  endure. 

Paul  rejected  emphatically  the  communistic  fanat- 
icism related  to  the  early-Christian  tendency  to 
world-abnegation;  he  was  opposed  consistently  to 
the  underestimation  of  labor  and  property,  and  the 
overestimation  of  poverty  and  charity.  He  com- 
manded the  Thessalonians  (I,  4,  11  seq.)  to  work 
in  peace  and  eat  their  own  bread,  which  means  the 
bread  they  earned  and  did  not  get  by  begging,  so 
that  they  would  not  need  the  bread  of  others  but 
could  give  of  their  own.  Paul  was  so  far  removed 
from  the  ideal  of  common  property  maintained  by 
the  messianic  congregation  at  Jerusalem,  that  his 
epistles,  throughout,  presuppose  private  property  ac- 
quired in  business,  and  regard  business  not  only  as 
permitted  but  required  as  a  means  toward  honorable 
independence  of  personality  and  charitable  assistance 
to  the  needy.  Naturally,  labor  did  not  thereby  ac- 
quire a  moral  dignity  on  principle;  the  Protestant 
idea  that  labor  in  and  of  itself  belongs  to  the  moral 
ideal  as  the  employment  of  personal  power  for  the 
achievement  of  public  welfare,  this  was  as  strange  to 

2n 


Christian  Origins 

Paul  as  to  the  rest  of  antiquity;  herein,  as  in  his 
judgment  of  marriage  as  a  necessary  evil,  he  was 
prejudiced  by  the  dualistic  view  of  his  times  which 
underestimated  the  physical  as  unclean  and  evil, 
hemming  the  spiritual.  This  remained  the  funda- 
mental church-view  and  attitude,  characteristically 
expressed  by  the  monastic  system;  Protestantism 
first  led  the  way  above  and  beyond  it. 

Two  great  achievements  for  Christianity  must  be 
credited  to  Paul :  he  freed  it  from  the  Mosaic  law, 
making  it  accessible  to  the  heathen  and  raising  it  to 
a  world-religion,  and  through  him  the  early-Chris- 
tian enthusiasm  was  subdued  and  ennobled.  The 
revolutionary  tendency,  feverishly  tense  for  the  ap- 
proaching world-destruction  and  radically  negative 
toward  existing  social  institutions,  he  overcame  and 
thereby  established  the  possibility  of  the  historical 
existence  and  inner  development  of  the  new  religion. 
Without  losing  sight  of  the  apocalyptic  perspective 
of  the  return  of  Christ  for  the  establishment  of  his 
kingdom,  he  transferred  the  centre  of  gravity  of  the 
redeeming  faith  from  the  future  into  the  present, 
into  that  new  life,  which  was  not  to  begin  with  the 
end  of  the  world,  but  which  existed  in  the  hearts  of 
the  faithful,  who  had  the  child  spirit  and  hence  peace 
with  God,  freedom  from  the  world  and  brotherly 
love.  By  his  doctrine  of  the  Christ-spirit  and  its  in- 
working  in  Christians  as  the  members  of  Christ's 
body,  he  anticipated  the  future,  catastrophic  world- 
regeneration  and  spiritualized  the  Jewish-messianic 

212 


The  Apostle  Paul 

kingdom  of  the  early-congregation,  into  an  ethical- 
religious  kingdom,  now  existing  in  righteousness, 
peace  and  joy  of  the  holy  Spirit.  (Rom.  4,  17.) 
He  relegated  the  unhealthy  dreams  of  the  future 
which  comported  ill  with  the  tasks  of  reality,  back 
of  the  "reasonable  service"  (Rom.  12,  i),  which 
shows  itself  pleasing  to  God  and  worthy  of  men  by 
service  to  neighbors  and  the  fulfillment  of  social 
duties.  He  restored  government,  marriage,  property 
and  labor  to  their  own  and  obstructed  the  commu- 
nistic tendencies,  the  idleness  and  the  beggary  of 
the  oldest  messianic-congregations.  In  short,  he  led 
Christianity  through  the  critical  years  of  enthusias- 
tic childhood  into  the  path  of  an  ordered  church- 
existence,  saving  its  historical  future,  making  pos- 
sible its  ecclesiastical  development. 

But  the  price  which  had  to  be  paid  for  this  im- 
mense profit  and  progress  was  the  differentiation 
between  the  super-temporal  Christ-spirit  and  the  his- 
torical person  Jesus,  as  well  as  the  envelopment  of 
that  ideal  principle  in  the  mythical  form  of  a  spirit- 
being,  descended  from  heaven  to  earth  and  made 
human.  This  was  the  initial  step  on  the  path  to 
the  Gnostic  speculations  on  spirits  and  gods  beyond, 
which  threatened,  by  their  very  abundance  in  the 
second  century,  to  dissolve  Christianity  into  a  myth- 
ical dream-picture  and  cause  the  evaporation  of  its 
historical-moral  character.  Pauline  theology,  with 
its  slight  tendencies  to  Gnosticism  and  almost  abso- 
lute independence  of  the  life  and  teachings  of  Jesus, 

213 


Christian  Origins 

was  not  an  adequate  defense  against  this  menace 
to  Christianity.  This  lack  on  the  historical  side 
necessitated  a  complement.  Though  written  in  the 
post-Pauline  period  and  partially  composed  under 
the  influence  of  Pauline  thoughts,  the  three  older 
Gospels  performed  this  service,  for  they  had  the 
traditions  of  the  early-congregation  concerning  the 
life  and  teaching  of  Jesus  as  a  basis.  The  fusion 
of  this  comparatively  historical  memory-picture  of 
Jesus  with  the  Pauline,  speculation  on  the  heavenly 
Christ-spirit,  resulted  in  John's  conception  of  Christ, 
which  contained  in  mice  the  church-doctrine  of  the 
incarnation  and  the  double  nature  of  the  God-man. 


214 


THE  THREE  OLDER  GOSPELS 


THE  THREE  OLDER  GOSPELS 

It  may  be  accepted  to-day  as  a  certain  result  of 
the  industrious  Gospel-research  of  the  last  century, 
that  Mark  is  the  oldest  of  the  canonical  Gospels  and 
is  the  ground-work  for  Luke  and  Matthew;  also, 
that  aside  from  Mark,  there  did  exist  a  source-book 
written  in  Aramaic,  which  was  part  of  the  ground- 
work of  the  other  Gospels.  Did  this  Aramaic 
source  contain  merely  a  collection  of  the  sayings 
of  Jesus  or  were  there  narratives  also  in  it,  so  that 
it  might  be  termed  "  the  earliest  Gospel  ?  "  Was 
this  one  of  Mark's  sources  aside  from  oral  tradi- 
tion? On  these  questions,  opinions  differ.  For 
various  reasons,  I  am  inclined  to  accept  the  lattef 
theory  as  the  more  probable. 

The  early  origin  of  Mark  is  indicated  not  only  by 
the  relatively  greater  naturalness  and  historical 
probability  of  the  order  of  the  Gospel  story  in  gen- 
eral, but  especially  by  certain  peculiar  features  of 
the  presentation  of  the  person  of  Jesus.  Little  as 
it  can  be  denied,  that  the  apologetic  motives  of  the 
general  Gospel  tradition  and  Pauline  views  of  faith 
in  particular  are  dominant,  yet  a  comparison  with 
the  other  Gospels  reveals  that  Mark  represents  an 
earlier  stage  of  apologetic  authorship  and  hence  a 
comparatively  clearer  and  more  naive  presentation 
of  tradition. 

217 


Christian  Origins 

According  to  Mark  (as  in  the  speeches  of  the 
Acts),  Jesus  is  the  Son  of  God  by  virtue  of  the  gift 
of  the  spirit  at  the  baptism,  with  which  this  Gospel 
begins;  it  knows  nothing  of  a  supernatural  birth  or 
childhood  story.  His  mother  and  family  have  no 
premonition  of  his  higher  mission,  let  alone  higher 
descent.  (Mark  3,  20-31.)  His  miraculous  power 
is  not  yet  without  limit,  but  conditioned  by  the  be- 
lief of  his  environment  (6,  5  seq.)  ;  also  partially 
employing  natural  means  and  successively  engaged 
(7,  32  seq.;  8,  23  seq.),  he  is  not  entirely  re- 
moved from  the  category  of  the  wonder-workers  of 
his  time.  His  knowledge,  too,  is  not  unconditioned 
(13,  32).  Often  human  emotions,  such  as  indigna- 
tion, anger  and  impatience  at  the  misunderstanding 
of  the  people  and  of  his  disciples  are  ascribed  to 
Jesus;  while  the  milder  features  which  Luke  em- 
phasizes in  his  picture  of  the  merciful  savior  of  the 
sinful,  are  rare.  As  Mark  describes  him,  Christ  is 
j  above  all  the  heroic  reformer,  who  from  the  begin- 
ning does  not  avoid  the  struggle  with  the  ruling 
Jewish  authorities  but  rather  provokes  it,  who  reso- 
lutely breaks  with  his  own  family,  who  appears  at 
Jerusalem  with  the  public  deed  of  cleansing  the  Tem- 
ple and  openly  announces  their  destruction  to  the 
Hierarchs,  who  preserves  the  silence  of  heroic  resig- 
nation in  the  face  of  the  accusation  of  his  enemies 
and  breathes  his  last  on  the  cross  with  a  cry  of  com- 
plaint at  the  abandonment  by  God — all  of  which  is 
told  simply,  without  softening  the  harshnesses,  or 

218 


The  Three  Older  Gospels 

weakening  the  soul-stirring  tragedy  by  the  emotional 
features  which  Luke  loves;  thus,  this  oldest  Evan- 
gelist furnishes  the  truest  impression  which  Jesus 
made  on  his  environment, — here  he  actually  lives 
and  works. 

On  the  other  hand,  it  must  not  be  overlooked, 
that  even  this  oldest  Gospel-writer  is  guided  by  a 
decided  apologetic  purpose  in  the  selection  and  ma- 
nipulation of  his  material.  He  wrote  for  Heathen- 
Christians  and  wished  to  awaken  or  confirm  the 
conviction  that  despite  the  rejection  by  the  Jews, 
Jesus  of  Nazareth  was  proven  to  be  the  Christ  and 
the  son  of  God  by  wonders  and  signs  of  every  kind, 
especially  by  the  wonders  of  baptism,  transfigura- 
tion and  resurrection,  that  his  victorious  struggle 
against  the  Jewish  priestly  and  liturgical  service 
erected  a  new  Temple  beyond  the  senses  in  the  con- 
gregation of  Christ-believers  in  the  place  of  the  old 
one  of  the  senses,  and  that  by  the  blood  which  he 
had  shed  for  many,  he  established  a  new  covenant 
to  take  the  place  of  old  covenant  of  the  Law.  It 
is  the  fundamental  thought  of  the  Pauline  Gospel 
of  Christ  as  the  son  of  God,  "  according  to  the 
spirit  of  holiness"  (Rom.  i,  4),  who  became  the 
end  of  the  Law  and  the  mediator  of  the  new  cove- 
nant by  the  sacrificial  death  and  resurrection  in 
glory — this  great  theme  of  Paul's  missionary  teach- 
ing is  the  theme  of  the  Evangelist  Mark,  and  he 
sought  to  illustrate  it  by  a  judicious  selection  of  the 
deeds  and  sayings  of  Jesus.     For  this  purpose,  the 

219 


Christian  Ori 


gins 


selection  is  well  made.  The  surprising  number  of 
miracle-stories  serves  well  for  the  needs  and  wishes 
of  heathen  readers,  who  saw  in  just  such  concrete 
miracles  the  confirmatory  signs  of  the  mission  and 
dignity  of  the  Lord  Jesus.  Those  sayings  of  Jesus 
are  preferred  which  refer  to  the  struggle  with  the 
Hierarchs  and  scribes,  while  those  which  refer  to  the 
inner  life  of  the  congregation  are  not  so  much  con- 
sidered, and  those  which  have  a  conservative  atti- 
tude toward  the  Jewish  law  and  life  (as  Matthew  5, 
17  seq. ;    10,  5  seq.)  are  entirely  suppressed. 

The  pupil  of  Paul  is  most  evident  in  the  speeches, 
which  the  Evangelist  did  not  find  in  his  source-book 
or  in  the  Palestinian  tradition,  but  created  inde- 
pendently and  for  the  first  time  fitted  into  the  tradi- 
tional material  as  the  leading  religious  motives  for 
the  judgment  of  the  history  of  Jesus.  First  of  all, 
the  passion-prophecies  belong  in  this  category;  they 
are  scattered  about  from  the  beginning  (2,  20)  and 
repeat  themselves  from  Peter's  confession  on,  with 
increasing  vehemence ;  they  are  not  intended  merely 
to  do  away  with  the  stumbling-block  of  the  cross, 
by  presenting  it  as  a  God-ordained  fate  foreknown 
of  Jesus — in  the  early-congregation,  that  had  been 
done, — but  they  are  calculated  to  lead  the  reader  to 
the  conviction  that  in  the  passion,  death  and  resur- 
rection of  the  son  of  man  lies  the  real,  final  purpose 
of  his  earth-life,  the  climax  of  the  story  and  the 
.  central  point  of  his  gospel.  In  two  passages,  the 
I  Evangelist  makes  Jesus  himself  utter  Paul's  inter- 


220 


The  Three  Older  Gospels 

pretation  of  the  death  of  Jesus :  "  For,  verily  the 
Son  of  man  came  not  to  be  ministered  unto,  but  to 
minister,  and  to  give  his  life  a  ransom  for  many  " 
(lo,  45)  and  at  the  last  supper :  "  This  is  my  blood 
of  the  covenant  which  is  shed  for  many  "  (14,  24), 
which  means  that  Jesus  terms  his  death  a  vicarious 
atonement  for  the  establishment  of  the  new  covenant 
— a  thought  entirely  strange  to  Jesus  himself,* 
hence,  taken  from  the  Pauline  doctrine  of  salvation 
and  for  the  first  time  inserted  into  the  gospel-tradi- 
tion by  Mark,  the  pupil  of  Paul.  Probably  the  story 
of  the  transfiguration  of  Jesus  is  original  with  Mark 
and  serves  as  an  illustration  of  Paul's  words  about 
the  greater  glow  of  light  of  the  spiritual  covenant 
when  compared  with  that  of  the  covenant  of  the  Law 
(II  Cor.  3,  7  seq.).  Particularly,  the  remarkable 
and  entirely  unhistorical  motivation  of  the  parables 
of  Jesus,  as  though  their  purpose  had  been  to  veil  the 
truth  and  confuse  the  auditors,  finds  explanation 
in  Paul's  doctrine  of  predestination,  according  to 
which  the  lack  of  faith  and  immovability  of  the  Jews  > 
is  made  to  appear  as  something  predetermined  in 
God's  plans.  (Cp.  Mark  4,  12  with  Rom.  11,  7 
seq. )  It  is  seen  that  those  important  points  in  Mark 
which  are  peculiar  and  historically  impossible,  are 
to  be  attributed  to  the  doctrines  taught  by  Paul. 

*  Cp.  page  128.  The  passage  (Mark  lo,  45)  is  probably  the 
Pauline  transformation  of  Luke  22,  27,  where  the  original  form  is 
preserved  :  "  I  am  in  the  midst  of  you  as  he  that  serveth,"  referring 
to  the  service  of  love  in  the  life  of  Jesus  and  not  to  his  redeeming 
death. 

221 


Christian  Origins 

Nothing  can  be  urged  against  the  church  tradition 
that  this  gospel  was  written  by  John  Mark.  This 
man  was  at  home  in  Jerusalem,  related  to  Barnabas, 
in  close  touch  with  Peter  and  the  early-congrega- 
tion; he  entered  into  personal  relations  with  Paul 
at  an  early  date,  accompanied  him  on  his  first  mis- 
sionary journey  and  later  became  his  assistant  again 
during  the  Roman  imprisonment.*  Such  a  man 
might  well  have  been  the  author  of  the  Gospel  which 
unites  the  Jesus  of  the  Palestinian  tradition,  the 
energetic  hero  of  a  Jewish  reform  movement  with 
the  Christ  of  the  Pauline  theology,  the  suffering 
hero  of  a  mystical  world-salvation,  and  thus  paved 
the  way  which  was  finished  two  generations  later  in 
the  Gospel  of  John.  It  is  believed  that  the  Gospel 
of  Mark  was  written  at  Rome  shortly  after  the 
destruction  of  Jerusalem  (70  A.  D.). 

The  author  of  the  Gospel  of  Luke  makes  clear 
in  the  preface  to  his  book  that  many  have  written 
the  gospel  story  before  him  and  that  they  were  no 
more  eye-witnesses  than  he  was,  but  that  he  hoped 
to  surpass  his  predecessors  by  attempting  greater 
completeness,  accuracy  and  proper  arrangement  of 
the  narratives,  in  order  to  confirm  the  faith  of  his 
reader,  Theophilus.  For  the  edification  of  heathen- 
Christian  readers  and  in  order  to  place  Christianity 
in  a  favorable  light  before  the  Graeco-Roman  world 

♦Acts   12,    i»-25;     Col.   4,    10;      Philem.    24;     II   Tim.  4,    11 
(I  Pet.  5.  13?). 

ast 


The  Three  Older  Gospels 

in  general  (which  Theophilus  represents  as  we  take 
it),  in  order  to  prove  the  good  religious  right  of 
Christianity  as  a  revealed  religion  in  harmony  with 
that  of  the  Old  Testament  and  at  the  same  time  to 
show  its  civic  lawfulness  and  loyalty  by  its  history — 
this  was  the  purpose  of  the  author  in  writing  this 
Gospel  as  well  as  the  Acts.  For  his  purpose,  he 
gathered  the  largest  possible  amount  of  material 
from  many  sources;  he  took  great  liberties  in  the 
use  and  arrangement  of  his  material,  guided  at  all 
times  by  the  apologetic  purpose  of  edifying  and 
convincing  his  readers.  Throughout,  evidences  of 
great  skill  in  authorship  are  apparent,  the  trans- 
formation of  given  material  and  the  poetic  gift  of 
enriching  and  adorning  it  by  new  features  of  rare 
beauty;  he  created  the  artistic  form  for  the  new 
religion,  the  pregnant,  noble  picture-language  which 
alone  makes  the  gospel-truth  comprehensible  in  the 
garb  of  poetry  and  still  holds  captive  the  heart  and 
the  imagination  of  Christian  peoples  by  its  magic. 

This  is  pre-eminently  true  of  the  stories  with 
which  at  the  beginning  and  at  the  end  he  enriched  the 
gospel-narrative  of  Mark,  his  main  source.  While 
Mark  begins  his  narrative  with  the  baptism  of  Jesus 
by  John,  without  any  report  of  the  origin  of  either 
one,  without  giving  any  account  of  the  relation  they 
bore  to  another  which  might  satisfy  the  Christian 
consciousness,  Luke  attempted  to  satisfy  this  need 
by  preluding  his  narrative  with  an  account  of  the 
birth  of  the  Baptist  and  of  Jesus,  calculated  to  show 

223 


Christian  Origins 

by  their  origins  the  interweaving  of  their  fates  and 
the  higher  meaning  and  dignity  of  Jesus. 

Probably  employing  a  mythical  tradition  of  John's 
disciples  by  which  they  glorified  their  master,  Luke 
made  out  John  to  be  a  sort  of  wonder-child;  for, 
as  the  birth  of  God's  men  of  old,  Samson  and 
Samuel,  so  his  birth  was  announced  by  the  angel 
Gabriel  in  answer  to  the  prayer  of  his  aged  and 
childless  parents;  at  the  same  time,  the  higher 
destiny  of  their  son  as  the  consecrated  prophet  and 
his  preparatory  work  for  the  redemption  of  his  peo- 
ple were  foretold.  This  half-miracle  of  the  birth  of 
John  is  immediately  surpassed  by  the  entirely 
miraculous  birth  of  Jesus,  which  the  Evangelist 
makes  the  angel  Gabriel  announce  to  the  virgin 
Mary  with  these  words :  "  The  Holy  Ghost  shall 
come  upon  thee  and  the  power  of  the  Most  High 
shall  overshadow  thee;  wherefore  also  that  which 
is  to  be  born  shall  be  called  holy,  the  Son  of  God." 

According  to  the  older  legend,  Jesus'  messianic 
sonship  of  God  was  based  on  the  descent  of  the  spirit 
upon  him  at  the  baptism ;  but  that  did  not  seem  to 
make  his  superiority  to  John  certain, — the  less  cer- 
tain inasmuch  as  John,  according  to  the  belief  of 
his  disciples,  was  "  filled  with  the  Holy  Ghost  even 
from  his  mother's  womb"  (i,  15).  There  was 
only  one  way  of  surpassing  this:  namely,  that  the 
Holy  Ghost  alone,  without  a  human  father  should 
cause  the  life  of  Jesus  in  the  virgin  Mary — an 
idea,  congenial  to  the  Heathen-Christians  because 

224 


The  Three  Older  Gospels 

of  its  exact  analogy  to  the  numerous  sons  of  the 
gods  in  the  mythical  stories  of  heroes  as  well  as 
the  contemporaneous  legends.  For  not  alone  of  the 
heroes  of  antiquity,  but  of  the  celebrated  men  who 
lived  in  the  full  light  of  history  and  made  a  power- 
ful impression  upon  their  contemporaries  and  suc- 
cessors in  any  walk  of  life,  it  was  thought  necessary 
to  presuppose  supernatural  origin  and  divine  beget- 
ting; for  example,  the  funeral  oration  of  Plato's 
nephew  Speusippus  mentions  the  legend  current 
during  the  great  philosopher's  life  that  Periktione, 
his  mother,  bore  him  not  as  the  child  of  her  husband, 
but  of  the  god  Apollo ;  thus  Alexander  of  Macedon 
and  Scipio  Africanus  are  sons  of  Zeus,  and  Augus- 
tus, a  son  of  Apollo;  the  new-Pythagorean  saint 
and  wonder-worker  Apollonius  of  Tyana  was 
looked  upon  by  his  countrymen  as  a  son  of  Zeus. 
Origen  gave  happy  expression  to  the  motive  un- 
derlying such  legends :  "  The  simple  incentive  which 
induced  men  to  imagine  such  a  thing  of  Plato  was 
this:  it  was  believed  that  a  man  equipped  with 
greater  wisdom  and  power  than  the  average  must 
have  sprung  physically  from  higher  and  divine 
seed."  Origen  permitted  his  readers  to  draw  for 
themselves  the  conclusion  that  the  same  holds  good 
of  the  Christian  legends. 

While  the  Jews  were  accustomed  to  think  of  the 
concept  "  Son  of  God  "  merely  as  a  messianic- 
theocratic  dignity  (in  this  sense,  the  passage  of  the 
second  Psalm  is  intended  and  was  therefore  so  trans- 

225 


Christian  Origins 

ferred  to  Jesus  by  the  Jewish-Christians,  as  the 
original  form  .of  the  baptismal  utterance  shows) 
yet  for  the  Greek-Christians,  who  were  unacquainted 
with  this  broader  and  not  actual  conception  of  son- 
ship,  it  was  easier  to  think  of  actual  begetting; 
whereby  the  heathen-mythical  notion  of  a  sexual  act, 
being  too  strongly  anthropomorphic,  was  supplanted 
by  the  sublimer  idea  that  the  creative  power  of  the 
spirit  of  God,  which  once  brooded  over  chaos  before 
Creation,  called  into  being  the  sacred  life  of  Jesus, 
the  son  of  God,  in  the  pure  body  of  the  virgin. 
Afterward,  the  necessity  of  Old  Testament  proof  for 
this  became  apparent  and  it  was  thought  that  this 
non-Jewish  notion,  so  far  removed  from  the  idea 
of  God  in  the  Old  Testament,  could  be  based  on 
the  passage  in  the  book  of  the  prophet  Isaiah  (7, 
14),  which  tells  of  the  child  to  be  expected  by  a 
young  woman,  and  his  name  shall  be  Immanuel, 
symbolizing  the  nearness  of  God's  help.  Though 
the  prophet  thought  neither  of  a  miraculous  birth 
nor  of  a  future  Messiah,  the  name  Immanuel  might 
easily  suggest  application  to  the  Messiah  Jesus  (it 
is  entirely  foreign  to  Jewish  theology)  ;  then,  some 
Christian  who  was  not  entirely  familiar  with  the 
Hebrew  might  understand  the  Hebrew  word  almah, 
which  means  "  a  young  woman  "  in  the  text  of 
Isaiah,  to  mean  "a  virgin"  (which  it  may  but  not 
necessarily  must  mean),  and  thus  find  in  that  pas- 
sage a  prophecy  of  the  miraculous  birth  of  the 
Messiah  Jesus.     Such  a  bold  interpretation  could 

226 


The  Three  Older  Gospels 

have  been  possible  only  for  such  as  had  other  reasons 
for  believing  in  the  supernatural  birth  of  Jesus. 
The  original  cause  of  this  belief  is  not  to  be  found 
in  the  passage  of  the  prophet's  book,  altogether  not 
in  Jewish-Christian,  but  in  heathen-Christian  circles, 
where  it  had  originated  possibly  before  Luke's 
Gospel  and  whence  the  Evangelist  probably  took  it 
and  wove  it  into  his  meaningful  prehide  as  a  wel- 
come aid  in  establishing  the  superior  dignity  of 
Jesus  against  the  disciples  of  John.  At  least,  this 
motive  partially  influenced  the  Evangelist;  that  is 
evident  from  the  whole  arrangement  of  the  story  and 
particularly  from  the  fact  that  after  the  announce- 
ment of  the  approaching  miraculous  birth,  he  brings 
the  two  future  mothers,  Elizabeth  and  Mary,  to- 
gether, so  that  by  the  mouth  of  the  former,  the 
future  forerunner  John  makes  formal  utterance  of 
praise  of  his  superior  and  master,  the  Messiah  Jesus. 
With  consummate  art,  the  Evangelist  knows  hov^ 
to  stage  the  birth  of  Jesus  in  a  fashion  worthy  of 
the  great  miracle ;  varied  motives  from  profane  his- 
tory and  pious  legends  of  distant  origin,  he  weaves 
into  a  garland  of  lovely  pictures.  First  he  wished 
to  show  how  it  came  about  that  Jesus,  the  Nazarene, 
was  born  in  Bethlehem,  the  city  of  David,  which 
seemed  to  be  an  indispensable  presupposition  for  the 
Messiah  as  a  son  of  David.  As  the  motive  for 
Mary's  journey  to  Bethlehem,  he  uses  the  census 
which  Publius  Quirinius,  the  Roman  governor,  had 
decreed  in  Palestine  when  the  country  was  converted 

227 


Christian  Origins 

into  a  Roman  province.  This  event  really  took 
place  six  or  ten  years  after  the  birth  of  Jesus  and 
the  Roman  custom  of  estimating  the  population 
occurred  at  the  town  in  which  they  resided,  so  that 
the  census  of  Quirinius,  even  if  the  dates  agreed, 
could  not  have  been  a  valid  motive  for  the  journey 
of  Joseph,  not  to  speak  of  Mary,  to  Bethlehem; 
these  historical  obstacles  weighed  little  in  the  mind 
of  the  poet-evangelist  against  the  weighty  thought 
of  establishing  some  sort  of  connection  between  the 
birth  of  the  world-savior  and  the  politics  of  the 
Roman  empire. 

The  birth-story  itself  is  a  bit  of  transparent  sym- 
bolism :  the  poverty  of  the  stall  and  the  manger  and 
the  glow  of  light  from  heaven  upon  it,  the  greeting 
of  the  newborn  savior  by  angelic  hosts  of  heaven 
and  by  poor  shepherds, — these  symbolize  the  con- 
trast between  the  heavenly  sublimity  and  earthly 
lowliness  and  point  out  beforehand  that  the  message 
of  salvation  is  destined  especially  for  the  poor  and 
the  lowly  of  earth.  At  the  presentation  in  the 
Temple,  the  pious  seer,  Simeon,  greets  the  child  as 
the  bearer  of  salvation  and  of  light  for  all  peoples 
and  indicates  his  future  struggles  and  pains.  The 
prelude  closes  with  *he  story  of  the  twelve-year-old 
Jesus  in  the  Temple. 

It  is  the  more  certain  that  historical  traditions 
were  not  employed  in  the  shaping  of  these  prelude- 
stories,  because  the  most  striking  parallels  are  to  be 
found  in  other  myth-cycles,  especially  among  the 

228 


The  Three  Older  Gospels 

Buddha  legends.*  The  Indian  savior  Gautama 
Sakyamuni  was  miraculously  borne  of  the  virgin 
queen  Maja,  into  whose  body  the  spirit-being  Bud- 
dha ("  the  great  man  "  as  he  is  called  on  account 
of  his  heavenly  origin)  enters  unstained  and  un- 
staining.  At  his  birth,  also,  a  supermundane  light 
irradiates  the  place,  celestial  hosts  of  spirits  appear 
and  intone  a  song  of  praise  of  the  child,  who  brings 
salvation  to  the  world,  joy  and  peace  to  all  creation, 
and  will  reconcile  the  enmity  between  deity  and 
humanity.  Here,  too,  a  pious  seer  appears  who,  by 
miraculous  signs,  recognizes  the  child  as  the  future 
savior  from  all  evil  and  the  teacher  of  perfect  wis- 
dom. Examples  of  early  wisdom  are  also  told  of 
the  growing  Gautama;  among  other  stories,  it  is 
told  that,  during  a  festival  of  his  people,  the  boy  was 
lost  and,  after  an  eager  search,  he  was  found  by  his 
father  in  a  circle  of  holy  men  lost  in  pious  reflection, 
whereupon  he  admonished  the  marvelling  father  to 
seek  after  higher  things. 

These  parallels  to  the  childhood  stories  of  Luke 
are  too  striking  to  be  classed  as  mere  chance;  some 
kind  of  historical  connection  must  be  postulated,  and 
since  the  Buddhistic  legend  is  older  than  the  gospel 
of  Luke  ("  Lalita  vistara  "  was  translated  into  Chi- 
nese as  early  as  65  A.  D.),  the  dependence  is  on  the 
side  of  the  Christian  Evangelist;    how  to  regard 

*  The  main  source  is  '*  Lalita  vistara,"  the  Buddha-biography  which 
Foucaux  translated  into  French.  Extracts  are  to  be  found  in  my 
•*  Christusbild  in  religionsgeschichtlicher  Beleuchtung." 

229 


Christian  Origins 

this  dependence,  whether  direct  or  indirect,  and  by 
what  intermediate  agencies,  these  are  questions 
which  cannot  as  yet  be  answered.  It  would  contrib- 
ute greatly  to  the  impartiality  of  this  and  similar 
investigations,  if  it  were  clearly  understood  that  it 
makes  but  little  difference  in  the  end,  whether  the 
Evangelist  absorbed  more  or  less  suggestion  from 
foreign  legend-cycles;  for,  in  any  event  it  is  cer- 
tain that  he  transmuted  the  foreign  motives  in  the 
genuine  Christian  spirit  and  made  of  them  a  precious 
treasure,  which  has  edified  generations  of  Christians 
and  will  continue  so  to  do. 

Similar  to  these  prelude-stories  of  the  first  two 
chapters  of  Luke,  the  epilog-stories  of  his  last  chap- 
ter are  to  be  considered.  As  is  to  be  seen  clearly 
by  the  agreement  of  the  end  of  Mark  and  the  Gospel 
of  Peter,  the  oldest  traditions  knew  nothing  of 
appearances  of  the  resurrected  one  on  Easter  Sunday 
in  and  about  Jerusalem;  neither  did  the  finding  of 
the  empty  grave  and  the  appearance  of  the  angel 
to  the  women  belong  to  the  oldest  tradition,  for  Paul 
knows  nothing  of  it  and  Mark  indicates  the  novelty 
of  the  report  (which  he  probably  shaped  after  Syrian 
Easter  customs)  by  his  remark  that  fear  kept  the 
women  from  telling  of  it.  It  was  palpably  in  the 
interest  of  early-Christian  apologetics,  to  base  the 
faith  in  the  resurrection  of  Jesus  not  only  upon  the 
appearances  experienced  by  the  disciples  in  Galilee 
(for  the  objectivity  remained  ever  problematical 
owing  to  the  subjective  character  of  the  experience, 

230 


The  Three  Older  Gospels 

"vision"),  but  upon  tangible,  concrete  proofs. 
This  was  the  purpose  which  Mark's  story  of  the 
empty  grave  and  the  message  of  the  angel  intended 
to  serve.  But  this  was  not  enough  to  answer  the 
natural  question:  why  did  not  the  resurrected  one 
show  himself  at  once  to  his  disciples  at  the  place  of 
his  death  and  convince  them  of  his  bodily  life?  The 
next  logical  step  of  the  apologists  is  taken  in  Luke, 
according  to  whom  the  disciples  are  not  first  re- 
ferred to  Galilee  as  the  place  of  the  reappearance 
of  their  crucified  master,  but  on  the  day  of  the  resur- 
rection they  themselves  see  him,  speak  to  him,  even 
touch  him ;  they  see  him  eat  and  are  thus  convinced 
of  the  reality  of  his  bodily  life.  For  the  sake  of 
this  popular  need  of  concrete  proofs,  the  narrator 
did  not  avoid  the  contradiction  that  the  resurrected 
body  displayed  its  earthly  materiality  by  the  touch- 
ing and  the  eating,  while,  on  the  other  hand,  his 
sudden  appearance,  disappearance  and  ascension  to 
heaven  proved  its  supermundane,  ethereal  nature 
(after  the  fashion  of  a  light-body  as  Paul  thought 
it).  For  historical  investigators,  such  contradic- 
tions are  unerring  signs,  that  they  are  dealing  not 
with  tradition  based  on  any  kind  of  recollection,  not 
with  naive  legend,  but  with  a  secondary  form  of 
legend,  influenced  by  apologetic  considerations. 
Besides,  in  his  free  composition  of  the  Easter  stories, 
the  Evangelist  has  not  concealed  the  art  of  the 
epic  poet;  the  story  of  the  disciples  at  Emmaus  is 
one  of  the  most  precious  pearls  of  religious  poetry 

231 


Christian  Origins 

of  all  times,  which  the  pious  always  will  enjoy  and 
enjoy  most  fully,  when  the  childish  question  as  to  its 
literal  truth  no  longer  hinders  the  joy  in  its  religious 
poetry  as  such,  the  beautiful  garb  of  an  ideal  truth. 
It  was  to  be  expected  that  the  higher  view  of  the 
person  of  Jesus  as  the  son  of  God  in  the  peculiar 
and  unique  sense  which  was  placed  at  the  head  of 
the  birth-story,  should  appear  in  other  parts  of  Luke 
by  omissions,  additions  and  alterations.  Above  all, 
the  genealogy  belongs  in  this  category  (3,  23-28), 
tracing  back,  not  only  to  Abraham  as  in  Matthew, 
but  to  Adam  :  thereby,  Christ  is  designated  as  "  the 
second  Adam"  (in  the  siense  of  Paul,  I  Cor.  15, 
45)".  Christ  is  not  only  the  Messiah  of  the  Jews  but 
belongs  to  all  men  and  is  destined  to  become  the 
beginning  of  a  new  humanity.  He  did  become  that 
by  revealing  to  his  own  the  previously-hidden  true 
knowledge  of  God,  the  Father,  which  he,  the  unique 
"  Son,"  possessed.  The  passage  10,  22'.  "  All 
things  have  been  delivered  unto  me  of  my  Father: 
and  no  one  knoweth  who  the  Son  is,  save  the 
Father:  and  who  the  Father  is  save  the  Son,  and 
he  to  whomsoever  the  Son  willeth  to  reveal  him," 
certainly  does  not  belong  to  the  oldest  tradition,  but 
was  only  possible  on  the  basis  of  the  higher  Christ 
idea  of  Paul,  which  had  received  its  popular  expres- 
sion in  the  heathen-Christian  legend  of  the  super- 
natural conception  of  Jesus.  The  carrying-back  of 
this  dogmatic  idea  of  a  unique  metaphysical  relation 
of  the  son  to  the  father  into  the  self-consciousness 

232 


The  Three  Older  Gospels 

of  the  historical  Jesus  whereby  neoplatonic-Augus- 
tinian  mysticism  is  attributed  to  this  hero  of  a  re- 
formatory action  ("  God  and  the  soul,  the  soul  and 
its  God'') — historically  this  is  unthinkable;  the 
artful,  rhythmic  form  of  this  hymn  to  Christ  betrays 
it  as  a  product  of  ecclesiastical  consciousness,  which 
originated  as  little  with  the  historical  Jesus,  as  the 
song  of  praise  of  Mary  was  actually  spoken  by  his 
mother  (Luke  i,  46  seq.).  The  way  in  which  Luke 
weakens  the  story  of  Mark  concerning  the  visit  of 
Jesus'  mother  and  brother  is  characteristic  (3,  21,  31 
seq.)  :  Luke  (8,  19)  suppresses  the  purpose  of  the 
relatives,  which  Mark  naively  tells,  that  the  rela- 
tives came  to  take  care  of  him  because  they  thought 
he  had  lost  his  senses ;  it  is  suppressed  because  the 
contradiction  to  the  birth-story  is  too  striking,  but 
at  the  same  the  point  of  Jesus'  brusque  denial  is 
blunted.  Luke  sometimes  weakens  and  sometimes 
omits  the  conflicts  between  Jesus  and  the  hierarchs 
and  the  disputes  about  Jewish  ordinances;  but  as 
compensation,  the  struggles  of  the  son  of  God  take 
place  in  the  higher  regions  of  the  world  of  spirits : 
the  detailed  temptation  story  of  Luke  represents  him 
in  the  struggle  with  Satan's  tempting  wiles.  Again 
Buddhistic  legend  affords  the  most  striking  parallel. 
When  the  seventy  disciples  return  from  their  mis- 
sionary journey  and  report  that  even  the  demons  are 
subject  to  him  in  Jesus'  name,  Jesus  says  (10,  18)  : 
"  I  beheld  Satan  fallen  as  lightning  from  heaven," 
anticipating  to  some  extent,  in  that  moment,  the 

233 


Christian  Origins 

final  success  of  his  labors,  the  definite  fall  of  Satanic'' 
world-dominion.  But  the  struggle  is  still  on:  it 
was  Satan,  who  employed  Judas  Iscariot  as  his  tool 
for  the  destruction  of  Jesus  {22 ,  3),  and  who  seeks 
to  mislead  the  disciples  to  faithlessness  (22,  31); 
and  when  the  enemies  lay  hold  of  him  at  Geth- 
semane,  Jesus  recognizes  it  as  the  (foreordained) 
hour  and  the  power  of  darkness,  that  is,  the  last 
decisive  struggle  with  the  Satanic  power,  which  he 
was  destined  to  fight  as  the  mundane  path  to  celestial 
glory  (24,  51;  9,51). 

As  Christ's  struggle  is  not  limited  to  the  Jewish 
authorities  according  to  Luke,  but  is  made  to  apply 
to  all  the  powers  of  evil  spirits,  so  his  work  of 
salvation  is  not  confined  to  the  Jewish  people,  but  is 
extended  to  the  salvation  of  the  world;  both  are 
connected  insofar  that  the  heathen  world  was  re- 
garded as  the  realm  of  the  demons  and  the  conquest 
of  the  latter  meant  the  salvation  of  their  realm. 
While,  according  to  the  oldest  traditions,  not  only 
Jesus  himself  avoided  the  Samaritan  territory  but 
even  forbade  the  disciples  from  entering  a  Samaritan 
town  or  going  upon  the  heathen  street  (Matthew 
10,  5),  because  he  had  only  been  sent  to  the  lost 
sheep  of  Israel  (10,  6;  15,  24;  Mark  7,  27), 
Luke  suppresses  such  passages  and  makes  Jesus 
himself  undertake  the  journey  to  Jerusalem  through 
Samaria,  and  has  him  send  seventy  disciples  as  his 
messengers  to  the  Samaritan  cities  and  towns.  (Luke 
10,  I  seq.)     This  mission  of  seventy  to  Samaria  is 

334 


The  Three  Older  Gospels 

therefore  not  history  but  a  symbolic  anticipation  of 
Paul's  mission  to  the  heathen,  which  is  sanctioned 
beforehand  in  this  way  by  Jesus;  Paul's  practically 
completed  and  theoretically  based  progress  from  the 
Jewish  Messiah  to  the  world-savior  is  thus  carried 
back  by  the  Pauline  evangelist  into  the  Gospel  his- 
tory, as  the  necessary  consequence  of  his  higher 
view  of  Jesus  as  the  supernatural  son  of  God  and 
second  Adam.  How  much  greater  he  estimated 
the  importance  of  the  heathen-mission  represented 
by  the  seventy  than  the  Jewish  mission  of  twelve, 
he  shows  clearly  by  the  strong  emphasis  on  their 
far  greater  success  in  conquering  the  demons  and 
the  dominion  of  Satan  (lo,  17  seq.).  In  other  in- 
stances, the  half-heathen  Samaritans  are  preferred  to 
the  Jews  in  the  Gospel  of  Luke :  recall  the  parable 
of  the  good  Samaritan  and  the  grateful  Samaritan 
among  the  ten  lepers. 

The  obverse  of  this  friendship  for  the  heathen  is 
the  Jew-hatred  of  this  heathen-Christian  Evangelist. 
At  the  very  beginning  of  the  public  life  of  Jesus, 
this  hatred  finds  marked  expression  in  the  speech 
which  he  has  him  deliver  in  his  native  city  of 
Nazareth  (4,  16  seq.),  a  speech  which  must  be  re- 
garded as  a  free  composition  of  the  author,  like  the 
speeches  in  his  Acts.  The  historically  traditional 
lack  of  faith  of  the  near  neighbors  of  Jesus  (Mark 
6,  3)  is  used  by  Luke  as  a  pretext,  to  have  Jesus' 
express  from  the  beginning  his  rejection  of  the 
Jewish  people  in   favor  of  the   faithful   heathen, 

OF  THE  \ 

(     MfJlVFRSlTY    1 


Christian  Origins 

whereupon  the  irate  inhabitants  of  Nazareth  are  said 
to  have  attempted  to  kill  him.  Aside  from  the 
silence  of  the  other  Gospels,  this  is  historically  im- 
possible and  explicable  only  as  a  premature  state- 
ment of  the  actual  course  of  later  events  and  as  due 
to  Paul's  opinion  of  Judaism  and  Heathenism  in 
Romans  9  to  11. 

After  deducting  as  much  as  may  have  to  be 
charged  to  the  apologetic  and  polemic  purposes  of 
Luke,  the  author,  his  gospel  has  great  historical 
value  for  our  knowledge  of  the  actual  person  and 
teachings  of  Jesus.  We  must  thank  him  for  a  num- 
ber of  most  valuable  sayings  and  parables,  which  the 
author  carefully  compiled  from  sources  at  his  com- 
mand (i,  i),  and  which,  like  the  gospel  of  Mark, 
were  translations  and  elaborations  of  the  Aramaic 
earliest-gospel.  From  these  sayings  of  Jesus,  some 
of  which  Luke  alone  has  and  others  which  he  has 
preserved  in  most  trustworthy  form,  we  gain  a  new 
picture  of  Christ,  making  an  essentially  valuable 
complement  to  that  afforded  by  the  gospel  of  Mark : 
the  struggling,  reformatory  hero  recedes  and  the 
mercifur friend  of  the  poor  and  the  sinful  is  brought 
into  brightest  light.  Naturally,  one  does  not  nega- 
tive the  other,  but  we  have  every  reason  to  believe 
that  on  the  actual  combination  of  these  two  equally 
well-attested  traits  of  character,  the  heroic  fighter 
against  the  Jewish  powers  and  the  merciful  friend  of 
the  lowly  and  despised  masses,  the  tremendous  suc- 
cess of  the  historical  activity  of  Jesus  rested.     With- 

236 


The  Three  Older  Gospels 

out  doubt,  the  latter  side  was  the  more  important 
because  in  it  the  human  power  of  salvation  through 
a  serving  and  saving  love,  everywhere  and  always 
equally  effective,  appeared  most  directly.  The 
parables  of  the  lost  son  and  the  tribute-money,  of 
the  Pharisee  and  the  tax-gatherer,  of  the  two 
debtors, — the  stories  of  the  sinful  woman  who  was 
forgiven  much  because  she  had  loved  much,  of 
Zaccheus,  the  tax-gatherer,  of  the  repentant  thief 
on  the  cross — all  of  these  will  serve  humanity  as  a 
fountain  of  edification  and  admonition,  of  reproof 
and  elevation. 

We  must  not  overlook  the  fact  that  in  Luke's 
picture  of  Christ,  the  forgiving  and  saving  love  for 
sinners  is  closely  related  to  the  love  of  the  poor  and 
the  lowly,  and  the  aversion  toward  the  proud,  the 
overfed  rich  and  the  worldlings.  When  first  he 
appears  Jesus  declares  his  mission  to  be  the  enuncia- 
tion of  a  joyous  message  to  the  poor;  in  Luke's 
field-sermon,  the  poor  and  the  hungry  (not  the 
spiritually  poor,  not  the  hungering  for  righteousness, 
as  Matthew  altered  it)  are  praised  as  the  blessed 
who  will  find  consolation  and  satisfaction  in  the 
coming  kingdom  of  God.  Poor  shepherds  are  they 
to  whom  the  birth  of  the  savior  is  first  announced. 
Poor  Lazarus  will  rest  in  the  lap  of  Abraham  and 
the  rich  man  will  go  to  hell.  The  supper  of  the 
parable  is  despised  first  by  the  proud  guests  and  the 
lowly  gathered  up  from  the  streets  enjoy  it.  Riches 
is  "  the  unrighteous  Mammon,"  whom  it  is  well  to 

237 


Christian  Origins 

shake  ofif  in  favor  of  the  poor.  Refusal  of  earthly 
possessions  and  the  sundering  of  worldly  ties  is  the 
general  duty  of  disciples.  These  traits  of  a  reli- 
gious socialism,  somewhat  strange  to  our  eyes  and 
seemingly  exaggerated,  Luke  invented  as  little  as 
he  did  the  friendship  of  Jesus  for  sinners;  but  he 
did  preserve  them  out  of  the  oldest  tradition  and 
especially  emphasize  them,  because  they  accorded 
with  his  own  mood.  Certain  as  was  the  right  of 
the  Church  to  limit  this  tendency,  as  evidenced  by 
Matthew,  so  certain  is  Luke's  preservation  of  the 
social  trait  of  great  value  for  our  historical  under- 
standing of  Jesus'  work. 

The  Gospel  of  Luke  was  probably  written  at  the 
beginning  of  the  second  century  by  an  unknown 
heathen-Christian,  who  was  conversant  with  the 
literary  culture  of  his  time  and  particularly  versed 
in  the  works  of  the  Jewish  historian  Josephus.  Be- 
cause he  made  use  of  the  memoirs  of  the  journey  of 
Luke,  the  pupil  of  Paul,  in  his  "  Acts  of  the 
Apostles,"  church-tradition  used  the  name  Luke  to 
designate  the  author  of  the  Gospel  and  the  Acts. 

Of  the  four  Gospels,  Matthew  is  the  least  uni- 
form in  character.  On  the  one  hand,  it  contains  the 
most  emphatic  expressions  concerning  the  con- 
tinued force  of  the  Mosaic  Law  and  the  authority 
of  its  teachers  (5,  17  seq. ;  23,  3 ;  23),  as  well  as  the 
narrowing  of  the  mission  to  the  Jewish  people  alone 
(10,  5  seq. ;   15,  24;   16,  28)  ;  on  the  other  hand,  its 

238 


The  Three  Older  Gospels 

expressions  are  no  less  forcible  in  teaching  the 
rejection  of  Israel  and  the  transference  of  salvation 
to  the  heathen  (8,  12;  21,43;  23,  38;  24,  14). 
Christ  appears  as  the  son  of  David,  who  fulfilled  the 
Law  and  the  Prophets,  whose  life  from  birth  to 
death  proved  the  fulfillment  of  Old  Testament 
prophecies  and  models  and  whose  messianic  kingdom 
includes  no  more  than  the  people  of  the  twelve 
tribes  (19,  28).  Alongside  and  at  the  same  time, 
Christ  is  the  supernaturally  begotten  son  of  God, 
whose  destined  dominion  over  the  whole  world  was 
symbolically  pointed  out  in  advance  by  the  adora- 
tion of  the  oriental  Magi  and  afterward  was  con- 
firmed by  the  final  command  to  baptize  all  peoples; 
from  the  beginning,  he  appears  as  the  new  lawgiver 
for  all  men  and  in  the  picture  of  the  world- judg- 
ment, he  appears  as  the  judge  of  all  the  peoples, 
who  metes  out  his  fate  to  each  according  to  his 
attitude  toward  Christ  and  the  congregation. 

This  view  of  the  person  of  Christ,  going  beyond 
even  that  of  Luke,  is  particularly  evident  in  the 
alteration  of  the  traditional  saying :  "  Why  callest 
thou  me  good  ?  none  is  good,  save  one,  even  God  " 
(Mark  10,  18;  Luke  18,  19),  for  which  Matthew 
says  less  decidedly :  "Why  askest  thou  me  concern- 
ing that  which  is  good?  One  there  is  who  is 
good"  (19,  17),  whereby  the  direct  refusal  of  the 
predicate  good  on  the  part  of  Jesus  is  avoided.  The 
limitation  of  miraculous  power,  which  Mark  indi- 
cates by  the  remark  (6,  5)   that  Jesus  could  not 

239 


Christian  Origins 

perform  many  miracles  in  Nazareth,  Matthew  avoids 
by  saying :  "  And  he  did  not  many  mighty  works 
there  because  of  their  unbeHef  "  (13,  58),  which 
changes  the  lack  of  ability  into  a  lack  of  desire  to 
do  them.  This  harmonizes  with  the  increased 
power  to  perform  miracles  which  Matthew  attributes 
to  Jesus  throughout;  where  Mark  says  he  healed 
many  of  the  sick,  Matthew  has  him  heal  all  the  sick, 
brought  to  him  from  far  and  near  (4,  23  seq.)  ;  he 
has  the  daughter  of  Jairus  dead  before  Jesus'  help 
is  called;  immediately  after  the  curse  of  Jesus, 
he  makes  the  barren  fig  tree  rot;  he  heightens  the 
miracles  accompanying  the  death  of  Jesus  and  at 
the  resurrection  he  causes  a  great  earthquake  mak- 
ing the  watchers  to  become  as  dead  men ;  later  the 
same  guards  are  bribed  by  the  chief  priests  to  say 
that  his  disciples  came  and  stole  the  body  of  Jesus. 
Apologetic  intention  led  to  awkward  construc- 
tion of  the  legend.  In  the  story  of  Jesus'  birth 
and  childhood,  Matthew  has  lost  the  poetic  flavor 
which  gives  Luke  its  charm;  in  the  place  of  naive 
story-telling,  there  is  a  stiff,  apologetic  method.* 

*  Note  the  monotony  of  the  motives  in  his  story  :  five  times  the 
advice  of  an  oracle  in  a  dream  and  five  times  the  fulfillment  of 
ancient  prophecy  in  the  course  of  Matthew's  second  chapter  !  Con- 
cerning the  last  of  these  prophecies  (2,  23)  :  "  that  he  should  be  called 
a  Nazorasan,"  it  must  be  remarked  that  it  is  not  to  be  found  in  the 
Old  Testament  and  that  the  word  Nazoraean  is  not  derived  from 
either  Nasirwan  or  Nazareth.  That  "  Nazoraeans "  was  the  oldest 
name  for  Christians  and  that  it  became  the  name  of  a  later  sect  is 
known  ;  but  its  origin  is  dark.  A  recent  hypothesis  says  that  it  was 
originally  the  name  of  an  ante-Christian  Jewish  sect  and  passed  over 
from  that  sect  to  the  Christians. 

240 


The  Three  Older  Gospels 

This  confused  character  of  the  gospel  of  Matthew 
is  to  be  explained  thus :  the  most  varied  elements  of 
Jewish-  and  Heathen-Christian  tradition,  the  young- 
est and  the  oldest,  the  narrow-Jewish  and  the  uni- 
versal-church, all  were  fused  into  one  gospel-har- 
mony which  is  the  classic  expression  of  the  con- 
sciousness of  a  universal  world-church  while  in  the 
making.  In  more  or  less  sharp  outlines,  this 
ecclesiastical  gospel  has  sketched  the  dogmas,  ethics 
and  church-constitution  of  the  crescent  universal 
church.  The  proximity  of  the  son  of  David  to  the 
son  of  God  is  suggestive  of  the  dogma  of  the  double 
nature  of  the  man-God.  In  the  trinitarian  formula 
of  baptism  (28,  19),  which  appears  nowhere  else 
before  Justin,  is  the  seed  of  the  articles  of  faith  and 
of  the  "  apostolic  symbolum."  With  special  em- 
phasis, the  theme  of  the  sermon  on  the  Mount  placed 
at  the  beginning  reads:  Christ,  the  lawgiver,  de- 
scended from  God,  proclaims  a  new  law,  which  is 
the  fulfillment  of  the  imperfect  Jewish  law,  takes 
its  place  and  must  be  regarded  henceforth  as  the 
true  revelation  of  God's  will  to  all  men;  active 
obedience  of  the  new  law  is  the  condition  of  salva- 
tion. That  corresponds  accurately  with  the  Church 
view  of  the  second  century,  according  to  which 
Christianity  was  "  the  new  Law  "  and  the  Church 
was  the  institution  founded  by  Christ  for  the  educa- 
tion of  all  nations.  The  idea  of  "  the  Church  " 
as  an  organized  body,  which  is  strange  to  the  older 
gospels,  is  found  twice  in  Matthew  (16,  18  and  18, 

241 


Christian  Origins 

17)  and  begins  to  take  the  place  of  the  thought  of 
the  kingdom  of  God,  as  in  the  parables  of  the  weeds 
and  of  the  fishes.  The  beginnings  of  an  ecclesias- 
tically-regulated penitential  discipline  are  to  be  seen 
in  18,  15  seq.  There  the  Apostles  as  the  instru- 
ments of  church  action  are  equipped  with  the  power 
of  "  binding  and  loosening,"  which  is  equivalent  to 
making  and  administering  church-law.  This  power 
is  conferred  especially  upon  Peter  (16,  18)  ;  he  is 
praised  as  the  foundation  rock,  upon  which  Christ 
builds  his  church,  and  he  will  therefore  be  the  first 
to  get  the  keys  to  the  heavenly  kingdom.  This  say- 
ing, palpably  a  historical  impossibility  in  the  mouth 
of  Jesus,  contains  the  germ  of  "  the  primacy  of 
Peter  "  and  the  claim  of  dominance  on  the  part 
of  the  Roman  Church  which  was  deduced  there- 
from. 

How  far  removed  is  this  from  the  thought  of 
Paul,  that  Christ  is  the  only  foundation  upon  which 
the  Apostles  as  the  co-workers  of  God  should  base 
their  work,  each  in  his  own  way !     (I  Cor.  3,  9  seq.) 

The  gospel  of  Matthew  clearly  displays  the 
church-ethics  with  its  opportunistic  mediation  be- 
tween the  ideal  and  the  real.  Fasts,  prayers  and 
almsgiving  are  estimated  as  services  pleasing  to 
God,  which  may  reckon  upon  especial  divine  reward 
(6,  I  seq.)  ;  an  ascetic  life  of  voluntary  poverty  and 
celibacy  is  recommended  as  a  higher  "  perfection  " 
to  those  who  are  able  to  lead  it  (19,  21;  12); 
the  blessing  of  the  poor  and  the  hungry  is  trans- 
ferred to  the  spiritually  poor  and  the  hungry  for 

242 


The  Three  Older  Gospels 

righteousness,  while  Luke's  four  "  woes  "  (Luke  6, 
24  seq.)  against  the  rich  are  suppressed  and  their 
place  is  taken  by  blessing  of  the  benevolent,  the 
pure  in  heart  and  the  peace-loving ;  Luke's  designa- 
tion of  riches  as  the  "  unrighteous  Mammon  "  and 
the  command  to  abandon  that  idol  are  omitted ;  so 
are  the  stories  of  the  widow's  mite  and  the  judge's 
refusal  to  act  in  the  division  of  the  inheritance. 
(Luke  12,  13  seq.) — These  are  signs  of  advanced 
church-consciousness,  where  church  policy  consid- 
ered the  enthusiastic  socialism  of  the  early-congre- 
gation unfit  and  did  no  longer  despise  the  possession 
of  worldly  means  and  the  power  of  judgment  in 
temporal  affairs.  As  to  the  former,  the  church 
Evangelist  agrees  with  Paul's  principles,  though  the 
theology  of  Paul  is  uncongenial  to  him.  Add  the 
remarkable  coolness  toward  the  early-Christian  ex- 
pectation of  the  visible  return  of  Christ  to  establish 
his  kingdom  on  earth,  in  place  of  which  we  find 
the  closing  word  of  Matthew  (sounds  almost  like 
John)  telling  of  the  constant,  invisible  presence  of 
Christ  in  his  congregation :  here  we  have,  feature  by 
feature,  the  picture  of  the  life  and  faith  of  the 
Church  in  the  first  half  of  the  second  century. 

Self-evident  it  is  that  the  author  of  this  Gospel 
could  not  have  been  the  Apostle  Matthew.  We  do 
not  know  who  it  was;  altogether,  it  is  scarcely  the 
work  of  a  single  author,  but  the  work  of  various 
hands,  yes,  generations  of  early-Christianity  worked 
at  it ;  it  grew  with  and  out  of  the  Church.     There- 

243 


Christian  Origins 

fore  it  soon  became  the  favorite  Gospel  of  the 
Church,  the  catechism  of  practical-ecclesiastical 
Christianity. 

In  historical  value  for  our  knowledge  of  the  life 
and  work  of  Jesus,  it  stands  far  behind  Mark  and 
Luke.  But  it  is  the  more  important  as  a  document 
of  the  growing  universal  Church  of  the  second  cen- 
tury, in  which  the  opposition  of  the  apostolic  period, 
the  struggle  between  national-legal  Jewish-Chris- 
tianity and  the  law-iree,  universalistic  Heathen- 
Christianity  had  been  waged.  The  aggressive 
role  of  the  former  without  doubt  ceased  with  the 
destruction  of  Jerusalem  and  of  the  Jewish  state,  by 
which  it  lost  its  national  reserve-strength.  Hence 
the  editor  of  the  Church-gospel  could  incorporate 
conservative-legal  sayings  from  the  oldest  traditions, 
without  having  to  fear  that  Judaistic  partisans  in 
the  Church  would  gain  any  advantage;  for,  in  his 
time,  the  principle  was  immovable  that  the  Old 
Testament  was  Law  not  in  its  national-Jewish  form 
(as  ceremonial  law),  but  only  through  its  revealed 
"  fulfillment  "  by  Christ,  that  is,  its  human-ethical 
content  had  permanent  authority  over  Christianity. 
Just  this  faith  in  the  divine  revelation  of  the  "  new 
law  "  and  the  retributive  world- judgment  by  Christ 
were  the  essentials  of  the  church-Christianity  repre- 
sented by  Matthew ;  it  was  closely  related  to  the  Hel- 
lenistic Judaism  of  the  Diaspora,*  and  it  was  not  far 

*  The  ethics  of  Matthew  touch  most  closely  those  of  the  Jacobus 
Epistle  and  the  Apostolic  doctrine,  two  writings  of  Hellenistic  Jewish- 

244 


The  Three  Older  Gospels 

removed  from  the  Grseco-Roman  popular  phi- 
losophy, for  both  of  these  agreed  in  striving  for  a 
purely  human  ethics  applicable  to  all  men,  looking 
to  purity  and  goodness  of  spirit,  and  sanctioned  in 
some  way  by  divine  revelation.  The  Gospel 
brought  that  sanction  in  the  revelation  of  Jesus 
Christ,  the  son  of  God,  who  taught  not  only  the  true 
fulfillment  of  the  old  Law,  but  who  furnished  the 
personal  model  in  his  earthly  life  and  who,  upon  his 
return  as  judge  of  the  world,  will  mete  out  to  each 
his  deserts.  The  early-Christian  enthusiasm  with 
its  dreams  of  an  earthly  messianic  kingdom  was  re- 
pressed by  this  Church  of  the  new  law  led  by 
"  Peter,"  i.  e.,  Rome;  the  mysticism  of  Paul's  doc- 
trines of  salvation  and  grace  (with  the  exception 
of  a  few  traces  originating  in  Mark, — Matthew  20, 
28;  26,  28)  was  repressed.  But  these  could  not 
be  permanently  lost  to  the  universal  church,  for 
they  answered  to  the  mystical  trend  of  Oriental- 
Hellenistic  religiosity,  as  did  "  the  new  law "  to 
the  rational,  ethical  feature  of  the  then  Hellenistic 
culture.  In  the  course  of  the  second  century  the 
Pauline-mystical  tendency  received  a  new  and  grow- 
ing impetus,  which  soon  threatened  to  culminate  in 
a  dangerous  one-sidedness — that  impetus  was  the 
Gnostic  movement. 

Christian  origin.  It  is  indisputable  that  among  the  factors  of  the 
growing  universal  Church,  the  Hellenistic  (not  the  Palestinian  !)  Juda- 
ism or  Jewish-Christianity  takes  precedence  ;  Baur's  school  always 
maintained  this,  and  unbiassed  historical-research  scholars,  Christian 
and  Jewish,  are  conceding  the  point  more  and  more  generally. 

245 


THE  GNOSTIC  MOVEMENT 


THE  GNOSTIC  MOVEMENT 

Gnosticism  did  not  arise  originally  either  from 
Christianity  or  from  Greek  philosophy,  but  it  was 
a  religious  movement  growing  out  of  an  Oriental 
heathen- Jewish  mixture  of  religions.  Its  last  mo- 
tive was  not  so  much  the  desire  for  a  knowl- 
edge of  the  world,  knowledge  for  the  sake  of 
knowledge,  but  rather  the  practical  religious  hun- 
ger for  the  salvation  of  the  soul  from  the 
powers  of  death,  for  the  assurance  of  a  blissful 
life  in  the  world  beyond;  in  the  end,  all  gnostic 
speculation  and  mystic  ceremonial  was  related  to 
this  one  purpose.  In  order  to  prove  the  possibility 
of  future  life  for  the  soul,  a  relationship  to  the  divine 
life  was  attributed  to  the  soul,  either  that  the  soul 
descended  to  earth  from  the  world  above  or  that  the 
divine  being  had  implanted  at  least  a  seed  or  spark 
of  life.  Hence,  in  the  earth-world,  the  soul  feels 
itself  to  be  in  a  prison  or  in  a  strange  country  far 
from  its  higher  home;  the  body  appears  to  be  im- 
peding ballast  or  fetter  from  which  release  is  de- 
sired. But  the  death  of  the  body  in  no  way  assures 
salvation  to  the  life  of  bliss,  for  the  souls  departing 
from  the  bodies  are  threatened  by  the  gravest 
dangers  on  the  part  of  the  hostile  spirit-powers 
which  seek  to  devour  them  or  thrust  them  down  into 
the  abyss  of  hell. 

249 


Christian  Origins 

The  esoteric  teachings  of  the  wise  and  the  secret 
ceremonies  of  the  sanctified  were  to  serve  as  protec- 
tion against  the  dangers  besetting  the  soul's  journey 
to  heaven.  Hence  there  was  a  return  to  primitive 
myths  about  divine  and  semi-divine  beings,  who  had 
descended  into  the  regions  of  the  dead  and  tasted 
the  horrors  of  hell  but  had  remained  victorious  over 
death  by  their  own  strength  or  through  divine  aid, 
and  returned  happily  to  the  earth  above.  The 
speculations  of  the  mysteries  concerning  the  world 
beyond  attached  themselves  to  these  old  myths,  by 
making  the  return  of  the  mythical  conqueror  of 
death,  the  prototype  and  the  guarantee  of  victory 
to  all  those  to  whom  the  secrets  of  the  world  beyond 
had  been  revealed  and  to  those  who  by  sacred  cere- 
monies had  connected  themselves  with  the  Lord  of 
life,  the  "god  of  salvation,"  by  an  alliance  effec- 
tive even  after  the  death  of  the  body.  It  was  the 
object  of  the  mysteries  of  Mithra,  Sabazio,  Attis, 
Isis  and  Demeter  to  obtain  part  of  the  life  of  their 
deity  for  the  initiated,  by  virtue  of  which  the  sectary 
felt  certain  of  "  rebirth  for  eternity,"  a  happy  life 
in  the  world  beyond. 

Though  Gnosticism  was  from  the  beginning  a 
belief  in  other-worldly  salvation  on  the  basis  of 
mythical  traditions  and  mystical  rites,  yet  there  was 
such  a  similarity  to  the  Pauline  teaching  of  salva- 
tion that  there  could  not  fail  to  be  a  reciprocal  influ- 
ence. The  latter,  too,  taught  that  a  savior  and  son 
of  God  had  descended  from  heaven,  but  one  who 

250 


The  Gnostic  Movement 

had  offered  the  reconciling  sacrifice  of  death,  not  in 
the  gloom  of  a  mythical  past,  but  in  the  light  of 
history  scarce  completed,  one  who  had  conquered 
death  and  Hades  by  his  resurrection,  and  had  be- 
come the  Lord  and  Savior  of  the  living  and  the 
dead  on  his  return  to  heaven.  It  was  natural,  that 
Oriental  Gnosticism  soon  appropriated  this  figure  of 
a  Christian  savior,  and  transferred  to  him  all  that 
they  had  previously  said  of  their  mythical  redeeming 
deities.  Thus  was  the  Messiah  Jesus  of  the  early- 
congregation  and  Paul's  divine  man  and  son  of  God, 
first  changed  by  the  Gnostics  into  a  divine  being, 
the  subject  of  their  exuberant  speculation  and  the 
centre  of  their  mystical  rites. 

This  Christianization  of  Gnosticism,  originally 
heathen- Jewish,  could  not  fail  to  have  a  counter- 
action on  the  faith  of  the  Christian  congregation. 
For,  how  could  they  permit  the  Gnostics  to  go  a  step 
beyond  them  in  the  worship  of  Christ  ?  As  soon  as 
the  Gnostics  had  converted  the  Jesus-phenomenon 
into  a  divine  being,  there  was  no  choice  left  to  the 
Church,  but  to  follow  their  example  in  apotheosizing 
the  Master;  this  difference  there  was,  however, 
that,  along  with  the  divine,  they  did  wish  to  hold 
fast  to  the  human  side  of  the  Savior,  which  the 
Gnostics  declared  to  be  a  mere  semblance.  The 
paradoxical  fact,  that  the  conflict  of  the  Church 
teachers  with  the  gnostic  heretics  did  not  involve  the 
divinity  of  Christ,  both  being  agreed  there,  but  did 
concern  his  true  manhood,  is  explained  by  the  cir- 

251 


Christian  Origins ' 

cumstance,  that  the  doctrine  of  the  divinity  of  the 
redeemer-spirit  was  a  gnostic  presupposition,  sub- 
sequently brought  into  such  an  artificial  connection 
with  the  Jesus  of  gospel  tradition,  that  the  reality 
of  the  man  Jesus  was  lost,  or  at  least  became  prob- 
lematical. The  Church  teachers,  with  clear  vision, 
recognized  that  such  a  loss  must  not  be  permitted; 
but  now  that  they  had  accepted  the  presupposition 
of  the  divinity  of  the  Savior  themselves,  a  grave 
question  confronted  them :  how  could  the  person  of 
Christ,  at  one  and  the  same  time,  be  both  divine 
and  human? 

The  gnostic  lack  of  concern  in  the  human  Christ 
was  logically  related  to  their  general  disdain  of  the 
physical  world,  which  they  held  to  be  opposed  to  the 
spiritual  without  exception  and  the  source  of  all  evil. 
This  Platonic  doctrine  of  the  opposition  of  two 
worlds,  the  lower  visible  and  the  upper  invisible, 
had  been  emphasized  among  the  Jews,  so  that,  aided 
by  Persian  influence,  it  developed  into  that  opposi- 
tion, predominating  in  the  apocalyptic  writings,  the 
present  world  ruled  by  Satan,  and  the  future  world 
governed  by  God.  Thus  both  religion  and  philos- 
ophy formulated  a  dualistic  world-view  which  did 
not  harmonize  easily  with  the  monotheism  of  the 
Old  Testament ;  the  thought  that  these  two  opposed 
kinds  of  being  must  have  different  sources  is  so 
natural  that  it  is  not  remarkable  that  some  of  the 
Jews  of  the  Oriental  Diaspora  drew  the  conclusion 
and    attributed    the   creation    of   the    material    to 

252 


The  Gnostic  Movement 

another  creator  than  the  highest,  purely  spiritual 
God. 

The  mythology  of  Babylon,  the  theology  of  Juda- 
ism, the  philosophy  of  Greece  afforded  the  various 
elements,  which  the  Gnostics  combined  in  their  fan- 
tastic speculations  concerning  spirits  and  gods  and 
their  relation  to  the  first  deity,  to  the  world  and  to 
man.  With  sure  tact  the  Church  recognized  that 
these  gnostic  speculations  were  not  merely  harmless 
fantasies,  but  that  they  embodied  a  serious  menace 
to  monotheism,  the  foundation  of  biblical  Christian- 
ity; and  the  Church  declared  the  identity  of  God, 
the  creator  and  the  evangelical  God,  the  father  of 
Jesus  Christ,  to  be  a  cardinal  article  of  faith.  On 
the  other  hand,  after  having  accepted  the  divinity 
of  the  Savior  from  the  Gnostics,  the  Church  could 
not  avoid  following  them  so  far  as  to  place  the  God-  ;■ 
Father  alongside  the  Son  and  the  Ghost  as  other  v 
divine  beings;  thus,  the  Church  "trinity"  resulted  | 
as  the  simplified  companion-piece  to  the  gnostic 
doctrine  of  the  "  abundance  of  deity." 

The  Church  took  a  similar  middle  position  with 
reference  to  the  spiritualism  (related  to  the  dualism) 
of  gnostic  ethics  and  eschatology.  True,  the  Church 
teachers  were  in  a  difficult  situation  in  so  far  as  all 
Christians  at  bottom  shared  this  dualistic-spiritual- 
istic  manner  of  thought ;  because  they  presented  the 
extreme  ideal  of  world-disdain  and  asceticism,  the 
edifying  novels  of  the  Gnostics  also  exercised  their 
charm  on  Church-Christians.    Yet  the  Church  teach- 

253 


/ 


I 


Christian  Origins 

ers  were  shrewd  enough  to  ward  off  at  least  the  ex- 
treme consequences  of  that  Hne  of  thought.  How- 
ever high  their  regard  for  asceticism  in  general  and 
sexual  abstinence  in  particular,  they  frowned  upon 
the  rejection  of  married  life  advocated  by  the  Gnos- 
tics, and  held  fast  to  Paul's  teaching,  that  marriage 
was  permitted  and  advisable  for  Christians  in  gen- 
eral, while  celibacy  was  the  superiority,  the  special 
grace  of  a  few. 

While  the  gnostic  disdain  of  things  of  the  body 
expressed  itself  in  a  denial  of  the  resurrection  of 
the  body,  a  spiritual  resurrection  in  the  knowledge 
of  the  truth  being  placed  in  its  stead,  the  Church, 
with  all  its  contempt  of  the  life  of  the  body  on  earth, 
desired  to  part  with  the  hope  of  a  coming  resurrec- 
tion of  the  body  as  little  as  with  the  faith  in  the 
bodily  resurrection  of  Christ ;  the  impassioned  oppo- 
sition to  the  spiritualism  of  the  Gnostics  led  the  ma- 
jority of  Church  teachers  to  the  opposite  material- 
istic extreme,  elevating  (in  contradiction  of  Paul's 
words,  I  Cor.  15,  50)  the  resurrection  of  the 
"  flesh  "  to  the  dignity  of  an  article  of  faith. 

On  the  other  hand,  concerning  the  doctrine  of  the 
end  of  all  things,  the  Church  learned  enough  from 
gnostic  idealism  to  shake  off  the  childish  dream  of 
an  earthly  Messianic  kingdom,  rank  with  sensual 
happiness,  and,  in  the  forefront,  placed  the  eternal 
life  begun  on  earth  in  the  faith  as  the  spiritual  sal- 
vation from  the  fetters  of  the  world  and  of  death. 
Future  bliss  will  then  prove  to  be  the  continua- 

254 


The  Gnostic  Movement 

lion  and  completion  of  the  true  Ufe.  Of  course,  the 
Jewish  apocalyptic  hopes  of  the  early  congregation 
still  maintained  some  force;  herein,  as  before,  the 
conflicting  thought-series  were  permitted  to  remain 
undisturbed  alongside  one  another,  in  justice  to  the 
various  tendencies  and  needs  within  the  Church. 

Another  point  of  dispute,  concerning  which  the 
Church  took  a  similar  middle  position  between  Gnos- 
ticism and  Church-belief,  was  the  attitude  toward 
the  Old  Testament.  Inasmuch  as  Gnosticism  began' 
as  a  Jewish-heathen  religious  mixture,  it  goes  with- 
out saying  that  a  more  or  less  radical  criticism  of 
the  Old  Testament  characterized  it  from  the  begin- 
ning; in  particular,  the  Gnostics  rejected  the  ritual 
laws  as  the  dictation  of  inferior  spiritual  powers. 
At  this  point  comes  the  closest  touch  of  Gnosticism 
with  Pauline  heathen-Christianity.  While  Jewish- 
Christianity,  loyal  to  the  Law,  took  such  great  of- 
fense at  Paul's  opposition,  that  they  classed  him 
with  Simon,  the  Magian,  the  supposed  founder  of 
the  gnostic  heresy,  yet  the  greater  number  of  the 
Gnostics  were  attracted  sympathetically  to  the  teach- 
ings of  the  Apostle  to  the  heathen,  and  his  religion 
of  salvation,  freed  from  the  Law.  In  the  same  fash- 
ion as  they  infused  heathen  mythology  into  his  teach- 
ing of  Christ,  so  they  exaggerated  his  opposition  to 
the  Law  to  the  extreme  declaration  of  the  entire 
invalidity  of  the  Old  Testament.  The  Church  could 
not  assent  to  that,  for  it  held  the  Old  Testament  to 
be  divine  revelation  and  the  basis  of  its  own  faith,  as 

255 


Christian  Origins 

Paul  had  ahvays  regarded  it.  At  the  same  time,  the 
consciousness  of  the  difference  between  the  Mosaic 
and  Christian  rehgions  was  so  stimulated  by  Gnos- 
ticism, that  there  could  be  no  longer  any  thought  of 
upholding  the  Old  Testament  entire  as  a  deciding 
authority.  Again  it  was  a  compromise  expedient 
which  the  Church  chose;  it  recognized  the  Old 
Testament  as  a  preparatory  revelation  which  had 
emanated  from  an  ante-earthly  spirit  of  Christ,  a 
revelation  to  be  judged  and  made  uae  of  from  the 
standpoint  of  its  evangelical  fulfillment.  Whatever 
harmonized  with  the  Gospels,  retained  its  force  as 
revealed  truth;  part  of  the  balance  was  dropped, 
and  the  remainder  adapted  to  Church  comprehen- 
sion and  purposes  by  allegorical  interpretation. 

Wherever  it  threatened  to  destroy  the  Church- 
faith  built  on  evangelical  tradition,  the  Church 
fought  Gnosticism ;  but  at  the  same  time  the  Church 
appropriated  so  much  of  Gnosticism  that  the  con- 
sciousness of  the  newness  and  unqualified  sublimity 
of  the  Christian  religion  as  against  all  former  re- 
ligions was  deepened  and  clarified ;  its  horizon  was 
widened  and  its  ability  to  overcome  the  heathen 
world  and  culture  strengthened.  Therefore,  it 
would  be  erroneous  to  regard  Gnosticism  solely  as 
an  element  inimical  to  and  destructive  of  the  essence 
of  Christianity;  it  was,  rather,  the  most  effective 
ferment  of  the  evolution  of  Christianity  whereby 
there  was  brought  about  the  development  of  the 
new  principles  to  a  comprehensive  world- view,  rich 

256 


The  Gnostic  Movement 

in  thoughts  and  motives  of  most  varied  nature; 
therewith  its  crystalHzation  into  a  world-Church 
was  made  possible. 

It  is  apparent  on  the  face  of  it  that  the  fusion  of 
such  variegated  elements  as  the  primitive  Christian 
messianic  belief,  Paulinism,  the  Oriental-Gnostic 
mixed  religion  and  the  Hellenistic  popular  philos- 
ophy could  not  succeed  at  once  in  combining  the  old, 
the  new,  the  Jewish,  the  Oriental  and  the  Hellenic 
into  a  harmonious  unity  without  remainder  and  con- 
tradictions. Various  tendencies  were  working  sim- 
ultaneously in  the  Church,  particularly  the  mystic- 
speculative  religion  of  salvation  balanced  the  com- 
plementary practical-ecclesiastical  religion  of  the 
Law;  the  former  preponderated  in  the  East  and  the 
latter  in  the  West.  The  former  tendency  took  classic 
form  in  the  gospel  of  John,  while  the  latter  deter- 
mined the  forms  of  ecclesiastical  authority  by  the 
establishment  of  the  bishop,  the  articles  of  faith  and 
the  canon.  After  a  survey  of  these  two  authorita- 
tive, second-century  achievements  establishing  theo- 
logical and  ecclesiastical  Chri'-.tianity  our  task  will 
have  been  performed. 


257 


THE  GOSPEL   OF  JOHN 


THE  GOSPEL  OF  JOHN 

In  the  form  of  a  gospel  story,  this  book  teaches 
theology;  its  object  is  to  implant  in  the  reader  the 
belief  in  Jesus,  the  unique  Son  of  God  (20,  29). 
In  order  to  give  his  readers  the  right  key  to  the 
understanding  of  his  historical  presentation,  the  au- 
thor begins,  like  Luke  and  Matthew,  with  the  early 
history  of  the  life  of  Jesus.  He  does  not  begin  with 
the  story  of  miraculous  birth  as  they  do,  but  he 
goes  further  back  to  the  very  first  super-earthly  man- 
ner of  Christ's  existence  as  a  divine  being  in  unison 
with  God,  his  father. 

These  words  are  his  starting-point.  "  In  the  be- 
ginning was  the  Word,  and  the  Word  was  with  God, 
and  the  Word  was  God."  Then  he  describes  the 
general  relation  to  the  world :  that,  from  the  begin- 
ning, he  was  the  mediator  of  the  world-creation,  life 
and  light  of  man,  but  not  apprehended  by  the  dark- 
ness of  the  world.  Thereupon  he  causes  this  eternal 
divine  being  to  appear  as  a  phenomenon  of  history; 
"  and  the  Word  became  flesh  " ;  it  appeared  as  a 
human  being  in  Jesus,  who  is  the  "  only-begotten 
Son  of  God,"  because  he  was  the  human  appearance 
of  the  eternal,  divine  Logos. 

The  older  gospel-tradition  knew  nothing  of  this 
divine   being   and   prehistoric   existence   of   Jesus. 

861 


Christian  Origins 

Paul  had  taught  the  celestial  descent  of  Christ,  but 
by  designating  him  as  **  the  heavenly  man "  and 
"  first  born  of  many  brothers,"  he  ranks  him  still 
among  men  as  against  God.  How  did  the  fourth 
Evangelist  come  to  his  apotheosis  of  Christ  under 
the  name  of  "  Logos  "  and  "  only  begotten  Son  ''  ? 
Evidently  not  by  any  historical  tradition  of  the 
words  of  Jesus  which  tend  thereto,  for  such  words 
are  not  to  be  found  in  the  older  sources ;  neither  was 
it  mere  reflection  upon  the  impression  which  the 
historical  character  Jesus  made  upon  him — incom- 
parably more  correct  is  that  impression  given  by 
Mark  and  Luke  than  this  Christ-picture  of  John,  the 
farthest  removed  from  historical  recollection.  The 
explanation  is  to  be  found  in  the  fact  that  the  fourth 
Evangelist  was  influenced  by  the  Hellenistic-Gnostic 
thought  prevailing  in  his  time  and  environment,  and 
his  attempt  to  ally  that  thought  to  the  older  evan- 
gelical tradition. 

Let  us  not  forget  that  Philo,  the  Alexandrian 
philosopher  of  religion,  tried  to  bridge  the  chasm  be- 
tween God  and  the  world  by  divine  powers,  and  fore- 
most among  these,  he  named  the  Logos,  the  first- 
born Son  of  God,  the  second  God.  The  divine  mes- 
senger Hermes,  the  mediator  of  the  revealed  word 
of  the  deity,  served  in  the  same  manner  exactly  for 
some  of  the  Stoics  who  had  personified  the  divine 
reason,  which  they  thought  of  as  the  metaphysical 
principle  forming  and  ruling  the  world. 

In  the  Persian  religion,  also,  divine  powers  in  the 

262 


The  Gospel  of  John 

form  of  angel-like  beings,  ranged  between  the  high- 
est God  Ahuramazda  and  the  world;  first  among 
them  appeared  the  personification  of  God's  highest 
messenger  the  "good  thought"  (Vohumano).  In 
the  Babylonian  religion,  Nabu,  the  son  of  Marduk, 
has  a  like  importance  as  the  mediator  of  revelation, 
and  in  the  Egyptian  religion  the  same  holds  of 
Thot,  the  Son  of  Ra.  It  is  clear  that  the  idea  of  a 
personal  revelatory  word  or  mediator  between  the 
deity  and  its  worshippers  was  a  common  possession 
of  all  Hither-Asiatic  and  Hellenistic  religion  and 
speculation  of  that  age. 

The  Philonic  Logos,  the  mythical  personification 
of  a  metaphysical,  divine  principle,  here  found  its 
origin ;  as  did  the  "  Aeons,"  or  spiritual  beings  of 
the  Jewish  and  Christian  Gnostics,  the  Ophites,  the 
Basilides,  Valentinus  and  Kerinthos.  To  these  di- 
vine, intermediate  beings  of  gnostic  speculation  be- 
longed the  "only  begotten"  (monogenes*)  and 
the  Logos,  differentiated  as  father  and  son,  but  both 
subordinated  to  one  original  deity,  out  of  which  they 
came  as  emanations  from  its  abundance  (pleroma). 

Not  only  the  general  idea  of  intermediate  divine 
beings,  but  even  the  specific  designations,  only-be- 
gotten son  and  Logos,  had  appeared  in  the  specula- 
tion of  that  day  and  could  be  taken  for  granted  by 
the  church-evangelist  as  recognized  conceptions, 
which  he  might  take  up  as  presuppositions  of  his 

*  This  conception  is  traceable  to  Plato,  who  designated  the  World 
as  the  only  begotten  son  of  the  Father  of  All  (compare  page  34). 

263 


Christian  Origins 

Christ-teaching  without  the  necessity  of  a  closer  ex- 
planation. What  was  it  then,  which  was  peculiarly 
new,  differentiating  the  Christian  evangelist  from 
those  predecessors  ?  Pre-eminently  in  the  reduction 
of  the  many  intermediate  beings  of  gnostic  specula- 
tion to  the  one  mediatory  figure  of  the  Logos,  which 
no  longer  differed  from  the  only-begotten  son,  but 
coincided  with  him  in  one  and  the  same  being. 
Again,  in  making  the  eternal  divine  being  through 
incarnation  become  the  historical  redeemer,  Jesus 
Christ,  the  subject  of  evangelical  history. 

Philo  knew  nothing  of  an  incarnation  of  the 
Logos;  in  his  strongly-dualistic  view  of  the  world 
such  an  idea  had  no  place.  Though  the  Christian 
Gnostics  had  brought  the  divine  intermediate  being 
into  closer  relation  to  evangelical  history,  they  had 
no  thought  of  human  incarnation;  some  of  them 
maintained  the  appearance  of  Jesus  to  be  a  mere 
semblance,  destroying  the  actuality  of  evangelical 
history;  others  granted  an  external  and  periodic 
connection  between  the  divine  being  and  the  man 
Jesus.  Both  ways  the  divine  was  preponderant,  en- 
tering so  little  into  the  human,  that  the  historical 
Jesus  seemed  to  lose  all  importance  for  the  faith  of 
the  congregation.  The  Church-teachers  recognized 
from  the  beginning  what  a  grave  danger  to  the 
Church  was  involved.  With  great  emphasis,  Igna- 
tius and  Polykarp,  the  Bishops  of  Antioch  and 
Smyrna,  urged  that  the  Son  of  God  had  appeared 
in  the  flesh,  actually  had  been  born,  had  suffered 

264 


The  Gospel  of  John 

and  died,  that  God  had  revealed  himself  in  human 
form  in  Jesus,  and  other  formulas  of  like  tenor. 

These  formulas  set  but  did  not  solve  the  problem 
of  connecting  the  two  interpretations  of  the  person 
of  the  Savior,  existing  side  by  side  in  the  Christian- 
ity of  that  time ;  how  did  the  idealistic-gnostic  per- 
son emanating  from  the  divine  being  above  and  the 
realistic-historic  person  growing  out  of  the  evan- 
gelical tradition  of  the  mortal  become  an  inner  unity 
for  belief  in  the  God-man?  This  was  the  problem 
which  the  author  of  the  fourth  Gospel  did  attempt 
to  solve.  The  claim  of  the  Church-teachers  that 
God  had  revealed  himself  in  human  form  through 
Jesus,  he  wished  to  establish ;  by  making  the  thesis 
of  the  incarnation  of  the  divine  Logos  in  Jesus  the 
theme  of  historical  presentation,  he  wished  to  show 
in  detail,  that  the  glory  of  the  only-begotten  son  of 
God  and  the  divine  Logos  actually  did  reside  in  the 
Jesus  of  evangelical  history  and  had  become  the 
object  of  the  pious  view  and  actual  experience  of 
the  faithful  congregation. 

In  all  seriousness,  he  wished  to  narrate  history 
and  not  dilate,  like  the  Gnostics,  on  abstract  theories 
and  phantastic  myths  about  the  spirit-realm;  nat- 
urally the  historical  narrative  was  to  serve  through- 
out as  support  of  a  theological  thesis  precedent,  the 
incarnation  of  the  Logoh.  in  Jesus.  From  most  varied 
material,  oral  and  written,  church  and  apocryphal 
tradition,  he  took  whatever  suited  and  worked  it 
over  in  the  manner  best  adapted  to  his  purpose.  This 

265 


Christian  Origins 

style  of  narrative  for  religious  edification  had  long 
been  customary  in  the  Jewish  Haggada  (Legend)  : 
that  sovereign  freedom  and  indifference  to  the  actual 
facts  which  makes  it  so  strange  to  us,  was  unques- 
tioned in  an  age  whose  sense  of  the  actual  was  as 
weak  as  its  enthusiasm  for  the  faith  and  speculation 
was  strong.  While  the  idealization  of  history  in 
the  apologetic  interest  of  faith  in  the  Messiahship 
of  Jesus  had  begun  in  the  older  gospels,  yet  it  went 
only  so  far  that  the  historical  background  is  still 
perceivable.  However,  in  the  fourth  Gospel,  the  his- 
tory is  so  completely  subordinated  to  the  theological 
presupposition  of  the  incarnation  of  the  divine  Logos 
in  Jesus,  that  it  becomes  a  purely  didactic  poem  ris- 
ing so  boldly  above  the  solid  ground  of  reality,  that 
it  furnishes  no  data  for  a  historical  picture  of  the 
life  of  Jesus. 

A  few  of  the  most  noticeable  divergencies  and 
peculiarities  of  the  fourth  Gospel  will  sufilice  here. 
According  to  the  older  tradition,  the  place  of  Jesus' 
activity  is  Galilee,  and  only  during  the  last  days  be- 
fore his  death  is  it  transferred  to  Jerusalem ;  while, 
according  to  the  fourth  Gospel,  it  is  mainly  Judrea 
and  Jerusalem,  and  only  a  few  episodes  of  the  first 
part  transpire  in  Galilee.  In  the  former,  the  period 
of  his  activity  is  one  year  at  most,  while  the  latter 
speaks  of  three  Passover  feasts,  that  is  two  to  three 
years.  In  various  instances  they  differ  as  to  dates : 
The  cleansing  of  the  Temple  is  transferred  from  the 
end  to  the  beginning  of  his  activity,  whereby  it  loses 

266 


The  Gospel  of  John 

its  decisive  importance  for  the  historical  issue;  the 
anointment  in  Bethany  takes  place  six  days,  and 
not  two,  before  Easter ;  the  Last  Supper  and  the  day 
of  his  death  are  each  put  back  one  day,  so  that  Jesus 
died,  according  to  John,  on  the  day  on  which  the 
other  Gospels  record  that  he  ate  the  Passover  meal 
with  the  Apostles. 

John  chose  his  stories  with  a  set  purpose.  The 
miracles  are  limited  to  the  holy  number  seven; 
among  those  entirely  missing  are  the  healings  of 
the  possessed ;  while  four  new  miracles  are  narrated, 
outstripping  any  told  in  the  older  tradition  and  rec- 
ognizable at  the  first  glance  as  ideal  motives  cast 
in  allegorical  form.  The  miracle  by  which  the  water 
was  changed  into  wine  at  the  wedding  at  Cana 
(John  2,  1-12)  symbolizes  the  thought  that  Jesus 
substituted  the  joyous  and  powerful-  spirit  of  the 
Gospel  (Wine)  for  the  powerless  and  tasteless  cere- 
monial of  Judaism  (the  water  in  the  vessels  for  puri- 
fication) so  that  all  destitution  disappeared  before  the 
abundance  of  grace ;  therewith  coinciding  with  what 
Philo  had  said  of  the  Logos,  that  as  the  celestial  dis- 
penser of  food  it  gave  wine  instead  of  water  and 
makes  the  soul  drunk  with  a  divine  drunkenness. 
The  healing  of  the  man  who  had  been  thirty-eight 
years  in  his  infirmity  at  the  pool  of  Bethesda  (5, 
1-18),  symbolizes  the  thought  that  the  true  source 
of  grace,  which  the  sick  Jewish  nation  had  sought  in 
the  religion  of  the  Law  and  the  Temple  ceremonial, 
is  to  be  fo^nd  in  the  redeeming  words  of  Christ. 

«67 


Christian  Origins 

The  heahng  of  the  one  born  blind  (Chap.  9)  exhib- 
its the  truth  that  the  appearance  of  the  divine  Hght 
in  Christ  has  a  twofold  effect  illuminating  for  some 
so  that  they  recover  from  their  natural  blindness 
and  see,  and  consigning  others  who,  in  their  sham 
wisdom,  claim  to  see,  to  the  punishment  of  their 
own  persistent  delusion.  Finally,  the  chief  miracle 
of  the  resurrection  of  Lazarus  reveals  the  double 
truth,  parallel  to  the  foregoing;  namely,  that  Christ 
as  the  embodiment  of  divine  life  is,  for  the  faithful, 
source  and  guarantee  of  a  higher  life,  which  no 
death  can  touch  (11,  25  on)  ;  while  for  the  Jews, 
the  greatest  miracle  is  but  an  incentive  to  further 
obstinacy  in  their  unbelief  and  provokes  their  dead- 
liest hatred ;  this  last  is  a  confirmation  of  the  words 
which  Luke  makes  Father  Abraham  say  in  the  para- 
ble of  poor  Lazarus,  that  the  faithless  brothers  of 
the  rich  man  (the  Jews)  who  did  not  hearken  to 
Moses  and  the  Prophets,  would  not  believe,  even  if 
one  were  to  rise  up  from  the  dead  (Luke  16,  2y), 
This  parable  of  Luke,  wherein  the  resurrection  of 
Lazarus  is  desired  but  not  granted,  and  Luke's  nar- 
rative of  Mary  and  Martha,  furnished  the  motives 
out  of  which  the  fourth  evangelist,  with  thought- 
laden  art,  composed  his  wonderful  story  of  the  resur- 
rection of  Lazarus,  a  story  entirely  unknown  to  the 
older  tradition. 

In  the  same  way,  the  other  stories  peculiar  to  John 
should  be  regarded  as  allegorical  poems  almost 
without  any  historical  basis.    The  Samaritan  woman 

268 


The  Gospel  of  John 

with  whom  Jesus  holds  the  important  conversation 
reported  in  the  EvangeUst's  fourth  chapter,  is  the 
allegorical  representative  of  the  Samaritan  religion, 
a  mixture  of  heathenism  and  Judaism.  Her  five 
husbands  symbolize  the  heathen  cult  of  five  local 
deities  formerly  predominant  in  Samaria,  and  her 
present  unlawful  husband  is  the  symbol  of  her  pres- 
ent unlawful  (according  to  the  Jewish  opinion) 
adoration  of  the  God  of  the  Old  Testament.  Fur- 
thermore, the  half-heathen  Samaritan  religion  stands 
for  John,  as  it  had  stood  for  Luke,  as  the  actual 
heathenism;  hence,  the  question  of  the  proper  place 
for  the  worship  of  God  includes  the  other  concern- 
ing the  preference  of  the  heathen  or  the  Jewish  re- 
ligion and  gives  Jesus  the  opportunity  to  say  that 
the  worship  of  the  Father  in  the  spirit  and  in  the 
truth  would  take  the  place  of  both  and  had  done  so — 
a  saying  as  far  removed  from  Matthew  (5,  17  on, 
and  10,  5  on)  as  it  is  near  to  the  Pauline  saying  of 
the  Lord,  who  is  the  spirit  and  in  whom  Jew  and 
Greek  are  one.  There,  too,  the  Evangelist  has  Jesus 
suggest  beforehand  the  great  successes  of  the  mis- 
sion to  the  heathen,  and  (in  12,  20)  he  brings  on  sev- 
eral Greeks,  representing  the  heathen  eager  for  sal- 
vation— an  anticipation  of  the  mission  to  the  heathen 
similar  to  the  story  of  the  sending  of  the  seventy 
disciples  which  we  found  in  Luke  (page  235). 

Many  are  the  divergencies  of  John  in  the  story  of 
the  Passion.  The  institution  of  the  Last  Supper 
at  the  last  meal  is  missing,  but  the  lack  is  supplied 

269 


Christian  Origins 

by  the  washing  of  the  feet,  in  which  Luke's  figure  of 
speech  about  the  master  whose  slaves  serve  him 
(Luke  22 y  27),  is  transformed  into  the  actual  pic- 
ture. The  soul  struggle  in  Gethsemane  is  missing; 
this  expression  of  human  weakness  no  longer  har- 
monizes with  the  Logos-Christ;  hence,  the  sign  of 
divine  sublimity  (at  the  word  of  Jesus,  the  cohort 
of  his  enemy  fall  to  the  ground)  takes  its  place. 
Jesus'  confession  of  Messiahship  before  the  High- 
priest  Kaiphas  is  missing,  and  in  its  stead  there  is 
the  declaration  of  his  kingship  over  truth,  made 
before  the  heathen  judge.  The  old  tradition  that 
Simon  of  Kyrene  bore  the  cross  of  Jesus  on  the  way 
to  the  Crucifixion,  is  suppressed,  probably  in  view  of 
the  gnostic  fable,  which  has  this  cross-bearer  cruci- 
fied in  place  of  Jesus.  The  older  tradition  is  unani- 
mous in  saying  that  none  of  the  disciples  was  pres- 
ent at  the  cross  of  Jesus  and  that  only  a  few  of  the 
female  disciples  (the  mother  of  Jesus  not  being 
among  them)  looked  on  from  a  distance.  The 
fourth  Evangelist,  however,  says  that  the  mother 
of  Jesus,  two  other  Marys,  and  the  favorite  dis- 
ciple, meaning  John,  were  present  at  the  cross.  He 
tells  that  the  dying  Jesus  left  the  care  of  his  mother 
as  a  heritage  to  John.  This  is  unmixed  allegory; 
as  in  the  narrative  of  the  wedding  at  Cana,  the 
mother  of  Jesus  here  stands  for  the  Christian  con- 
gregation, and  the  favorite  disciple  is  the  ideal  apos- 
tle in  the  sense  of  the  fourth  Evangelist;  he  is  de- 
clared to  be  the  true  spiritual  brother  of  the  Lord 

270 


The  Gospel  of  John 

and  the  proper  guiding  head  of  the  Congregation, 
probably  in  opposition  to  Jacobus,  the  physical 
brother  of  Jesus,  the  head  of  the  early-congregation 
at  Jerusalem,  whom  our  Evangelist  did  not  choose 
to  recognize  as  a  spiritual  relative  of  Jesus. 

It  is  a  dogmatic  allegory  which  is  told  in  the  re- 
port peculiar  to  the  fourth  Evangelist,  that  the  legs 
of  the  body  of  Jesus  were  not  broken,  but  that  his 
side  was  pierced  by  a  lance  and  that  blood  and  water 
flowed  from  the  wound,  as  is  testified  to  by  the 
actual  eye-witness  (the  same  favorite  disciple  John). 
Tradition  knows  no  such  piercing  by  a  lance,  but 
the  Evangelist  took  it  from  a  figure  of  speech  used 
by  the  prophet  Zechariah  ("They  will  regard  him 
whom  they  have  pierced  ")  and  applied  to  Christ  by 
John,  the  writer  of  the  Apocalypse  (1,7);  this  figure 
of  speech  the  Evangelist  converted  into  a  fact,  im- 
portant in  various  ways:  first,  as  a  proof  to  the 
senses  of  the  actual  death  of  Jesus  denied  by  the 
Gnostics,  and  then  as  a  symbol  of  the  thought  that 
from  the  death  of  Christ  the  mystical  saving  powers 
of  the  Christian  mysteries  (baptism,  water;  and  sup- 
per, blood)  pour  forth. 

The  Easter  story  is  also  peculiar  to  John.  While 
Luke  has  Peter  alone  (none  of  the  disciples  accord- 
ing to  Mark  and  Matthew)  hurrying  to  the  grave 
at  the  women's  announcement,  the  fourth  Evangelist 
makes  the  favorite  disciple  accompany  Peter,  so  that 
John  gets  precedence  both  on  the  way  to  the  grave 
and  again  in  the  anticipatory  faith  in  the  resurrec- 

271 


Christian  Origins 

tion  of  Jesus — all  of  which  is  transparent  allegoriz- 
ing of  the  thought  that  the  spiritual  Christianity  of 
John  deserves  precedence  over  the  Christianity  of 
the  older  tradition  of  the  congregation,  represented 
by  Peter.  This  rivalry  between  the  two  disciples, 
as  the  typical  representatives  of  two  forms  of  faith, 
threads  its  way  through  the  entire  fourth  Gospel; 
in  the  supplemental  (21)  chapter,  it  finds  marked 
expression :  while  Peter,  the  practical,  is  to  exercise 
the  office  of  Shepherd  of  the  Congregation,  he  is 
also  to  suffer  martyrdom,  but  the  favorite  disciple 
is  to  remain  until  Christ  comes. 

The  peculiarity  of  the  fourth  Gospel  may  be 
marked  in  the  stories,  but  it  is  still  more  apparent  in 
the  speeches.  The  speeches  of  the  older  tradition 
contained  popular  sayings  and  parables  about  the 
kingdom  of  God,  about  true  righteousness  and  man's 
attitude  and  manner  of  action  in  various  life-rela- 
tions which  please  God.  Inspired  by  natural  occur- 
rences, these  sayings  are  adapted  to  the  needs  and 
understanding  of  the  audience  and  create  the  impres- 
sion of  truth  to  life.  The  speeches  of  John,  how- 
ever, move  constantly  in  the  higher  regions  of  theo- 
logical dialectics  and  apologetics,  far  above  the  un- 
derstanding of  the  audience;  in  the  whole  Gospel 
there  is  not  a  single  parable  in  the  well-known,  older 
manner,  but  in  their  stead,  allegories  such  as  we 
have  been  discussing  or  metaphors  set  up  as  the 
themes  for  long  explanations,  such  as,  Christ  is  the 
light,  the  life,  the  true  vine,  the  good  shepherd,  the 

272 


The  Gospel  of  John 

right  door.  The  content  of  John's  speeches  is  al- 
ways the  person  of  Christ  himself,  his  heavenly  or- 
igin, his  unique  relation  to  God,  his  mission  in  the 
world,  his  reception  by  the  congregation  of  faithful 
disciples  and  rejection  by  the  world  of  unbelievers. 
In  the  room  of  the  apocalyptic  expectation  of  the 
parousia,  there  appears  partly  the  coming  of  Christ 
in  the  spirit,  which,  as  his  other  I,  continues  his  work 
in  the  congregation,  partly  as  the  promise  of  many 
mansions  in  his  father's  house,  where  Christ  pre- 
pares a  resting  place  for  his  own  when  they  depart. 
Thus,  religious  mysticism  and  immortality  beyond 
supplant  the  early-Christian  hope  of  the  coming  of 
an  earthly  messianic  kingdom.  It  is  noteworthy 
that  the  ideas  are  constantly  the  same  in  form  and 
content  whether  uttered  by  Christ,  the  Baptist  or 
the  Evangelist  himself — a  proof  that  these  speeches 
of  John  did  not  originate  in  tradition,  but  are  solely 
th«  theological  reflection  of  the  Evangelist. 

The  central  cause  of  the  departures  of  the  Gospel 
of  John  from  the  others  is  the  difference  in  interpre- 
tation of  the  person  of  Christ.  According  to  Luke 
and  Mark,  despite  all  his  extraordinary  gift  of  spirit, 
Jesus  is  essentially  a  man,  with  a  human  history, 
growing  and  maturing  through  the  interaction  with 
his  environment  and  becoming  conscious  of  his  mis- 
sion. According  to  John,  Jesus  is  the  complete  Son 
of  God  from  the  beginning,  the  divine  Logos  incar- 
nate, clearly  conscious  of  his  descent  from  above 
and  of  the  glory  which  was  his  in  the  celestial  life 

273 


Christian  Origins 

antecedent  with  the  Father.  Hence  human  growth 
and  education  are  strange  to  him;  from  the  begin- 
ning, he  knows  all,  prophesies  all  and  works  with 
omnipotent  power.  Just  as  he  is,  so  are  the  men  of 
his  environment,  rigid  personifications  of  abstract 
ideas  and  types  of  universal  species:  believers  who 
are  of  God,  and  unbelievers,  of  the  devil.  John  the 
Baptist  is  the  type  of  all  true  witnesses  of  Christ 
and  all  honest  teachers  of  the  church-faith  in  the  Son 
of  God,  and  the  Lamb  which  bears  the  world's  sin; 
Nicodemus  is  the  type  of  the  narrow  and  fearsome 
Jewish  teacher;  the  Samaritan  woman  is  the  type 
of  heathenism  eager  for  salvation ;  Nathanael  is  the 
type  of  the  true  Israelite,  receptive  of  the  Gospel. 

In  the  interviews  between  Jesus  and  the  Jews,  as 
reported  by  John,  he  shows  nothing  of  the  pedagogic 
wisdom  of  the  folk-teacher,  but  with  brusqueness 
he  drives  off  the  Jews,  making  then  appear  obdurate 
and  represents  himself  as  constantly  misunderstood 
by  them.  Toward  the  disciples  alone  does  the  mild 
and  winning  side  of  the  Savior's  personality  mani- 
fest itself,  particularly  in  the  farewell  sayings  (Chap. 
13-17)  where  the  mystical  religion  of  the  spiritual 
gospel  finds  its  classic  expression.  Where  there  had 
been  the  early-Christian  expectation  of  the  visible 
return  of  Christ  to  set  up  the  mundane  messianic 
kingdom,  we  find  the  coming  of  Christ  in  the  spirit 
and  the  lodgment  of  himself  and  his  father  in  the 
hearts  of  those  who  love  him  and  keep  his  command- 
ments.     In  this  ethical  mysticism,  the  Pauline  op- 

274 


The  Gospel  of  John 

position  of  faith  and  works  is  resolved  in  a  higher 
unity;  the  Christ-mysticism  of  Paul  is  reconciled 
with  the  practical  Christianity  of  Peter  (Matthew) 
and  an  ideal  of  religion  formulated  which  allies  the 
mystic  union  of  the  individual  soul  to  God  and  the 
moral  union  of  man  in  a  brotherhood  of  love,  in 
a  manner  scarcely  equalled  in  all  religious  literature. 
Certainly  this  pearl  of  an  eternal  religion  was  not 
too  dearly  bought  at  the  price  of  the  idealization 
of  historical  tradition. 

Naturally  all  these  divergencies  of  John's  presen- 
tation do  not  rest  on  a  tradition  historically  more 
correct,  but  upon  the  subordination  of  the  old  tradi- 
tional matter  to  the  new  dogmatic  thought  that 
Christ  is  the  divine  Logos  become  man.  The  under- 
taking which  the  fourth  Gospel-writer  set  for  him- 
self was  to  mediate  between  the  Pauline-Gnostic 
idea  of  Christ  and  the  historic  Christ-image  of  the 
tradition  of  the  congregation.  The  historical  judg- 
ment will  be  forced  to  acknowledge  that  this  was  a 
necessary  undertaking  and  that  the  performance  was 
the  best  possible  under  the  given  presuppositions. 
The  Christ  of  the  Church-faith  was  freed  from  the 
limitations  of  Jewish  Messianism  and  elevated  to 
the  height  of  a  spiritual  principle  of  universal  valid- 
ity, to  the  ideal  of  a  Son  of  God,  in  whom  divine 
revelation  and  human  religion  are  to  be  seen  in  their 
perfection. 

Under  the  presuppositions  of  that  period,  such  an 
ideal  principle  could  only  be  presented  in  the  myth- 

275 


Christian  Origins 

ical  form  of  a  divine  person  descended  from  heaven. 
Herein  lay  the  danger  (in  Paul's  writings  it  had  ap- 
peared) of  the  passing  off  of  historical  Christianity 
in  the  thin  air  of  abstract  idea-poetry  and  the  ethic- 
ally valueless  fantasies,  such  as  were  usual  in  the 
Gnostic  schools.  Only  by  the  closest  union  of  the 
supertemporal  ideal  with  the  historical  appearance 
of  Jesus,  could  this  danger  be  averted.  The  Gospel 
of  John  wished  to  bring  about  this  union  by  making 
the  whole  of  the  life  of  Jesus  a  pure  phenomenon 
and  continuous  revelation  of  the  divine  principle  in 
him,  in  such  manner  that  to  the  view  of  the  believer 
both  sides  present  the  unity  of  a  divine-human  life. 

However  justifiable  and  valuable  this  purpose,  it 
cannot  be  denied  that  it  succeeded  imperfectly,  as 
was  natural  under  the  presupposition  that  the  ideal 
principle  was  conceived  in  the  mythical  form  of  a 
divine  person  descended  from  heaven ;  to  harmonize 
the  thought  of  such  a  being  with  an  actual  mortal 
person  always  has  been  and  ever  will  be  an  abso- 
lutely impossible  demand.  Hence,  the  undeniable 
fact  that  the  Christ  of  John  throughout  plays  be- 
tween sublime  truth  and  phantomlike  unnaturalness ; 
it  is  the  former  in  so  far  as  he  presents  the  ideal  of 
the  Son  of  God,  or  the  religion  of  humanity,  freed 
from  the  accidents  and  limitations  of  individuality 
and  nationality,  of  time  and  space,  and  the  latter  in 
so  far  as  he  presents  a  god  wandering  about  the 
earth  in  the  mythical  garb  of  a  human  figure. 

It  is  the  task  of  the  present  to  discard  this  garb 

276 


The  Gospel  of  John 

without  disturbing  the  ideal  in  its  universal  spiritual 
truth  and  without  burdening  it  with  the  hemming 
fetters  of  the  Messiah  image  of  the  early-Christians. 

Concerning  the  composition  of  the  fourth  Gospel, 
this  much  may  be  said  with  certainty,  that  an  eye- 
witness of  the  life  of  Jesus  did  not  write  it,  hence 
it  was  not  written  by  the  Apostle  John.  The  Gospel- 
writer  nowhere  pretends  to  be  the  Apostle  John,  but 
he  refers  (19,  35)  to  the  testimony  of  an  eye-wit- 
ness as  a  third  person,  who  is  not  himself,  but  who 
is  his  source,  namely  the  favorite  disciple  (John). 

How  came  he  to  this  mysterious  figure  of  the  fa- 
vorite disciple,  whose  name  he  never  mentions  di- 
rectly? The  apocryphal  records  of  John,  a  Gnostic 
novel,  give  the  answer ;  therein  John  is  portrayed  as 
the  disciple  whom  Jesus  had  made  his  confidant,  be- 
cause of  his  virgin  purity,  and  to  him  he  confided 
the  higher  (esoteric)  knowledge  of  his  divine  being. 
Thus,  we  may  suppose  with  probability,  that  in 
gnostic  circles  the  prophet  and  the  ascetic  John,  who 
had  become  an  authority  of  the  Church  in  Asia 
Minor  through  his  authorship  of  the  Apocalypse, 
was  identified  with  the  Apostle  of  the  same  name; 
so  that,  under  the  authority  of  this  honored  name, 
they  might  spread  their  gnostic  teachings  of  the 
Christ  as  a  secret  tradition  emanating  from  Jesus 
himself.  In  order  to  overcome  this  error  of  the 
Gnostics,  the  Gospel-writer  wrested  the  authority  of 
their  Apostle  and  prophet  John  from  them,  by  mak- 
ing the  latter  vouch  for  his  own  teaching.     As  op- 

277 


Christian  Origins 

posed  to  the  heretical  Gnosis,  he  set  up  his  true 
church-knowledge,  but  at  the  same  time  he  wished 
to  contrast  it  with  the  early-Christian  Peter-tradition 
as  the  higher  revelation,  transmitted  by  the  spiritual 
disciple. 

This  explains  the  rivalry  between  Peter  and  his 
superior,  the  favorite  disciple  John,  throughout  the 
Gospel ;  it  is  the  rivalry  between  the  new  semi-gnos- 
tic form  of  faith  as  against  the  old  tradition.  This 
middle  position  of  our  Gospel  between  Church  and 
Gnosis  explains  the  contradiction  involved  in  the 
Church- judgments  concerning  it  handed  down  to 
us  from  the  second  century:  that  it  was  written  by 
Kerinthos,  the  Gnostic,  and  that  it  was  written 
against  him ;  apparently,  it  was  noticed  from  the  be- 
ginning, that  this  Gospel  stands  in  a  close,  half-posi- 
tive, half-negative  relation  to  Gnosticism.  There- 
with the  period  of  its  origin  is  decided;  inasmuch 
as  the  Gnosis  of  Kerinthos  did  not  come  up  before 
13040,  this  approximating  and  opposing  Gospel 
could  not  have  been  written  before  that  date;  prob- 
ably it  did  not  originate  before  the  fourth  decade, 
the  time  of  the  second  Jewish  war  under  Hadrian. 


''278 


ESTABLISHMENT  OF  CHURCH 

AUTHORITY 


ESTABLISHMENT    OF    CHURCH    AU- 
THORITY 

Against  the  growing  danger,  threatened  by  the 
gnostic  movement,  the  Church  preserved  her  uni- 
form existence  and  historical  continuity  by  the  es- 
tabHshment  of  a  threefold  authority — the  bishop's 
office,  the  articles  of  faith  and  the  New  Testament 
Canon.  Toward  the  close  of  the  second  century, 
this  threefold  authority  was  settled  in  essentials  and 
thereby  the  existence  of  the  Christian  Church  made 
certain. 

In  the  description  of  the  Pauline  congregations, 
we  have  seen  that  they  were  originally  simple  fra- 
ternities of  pious  faith  and  life,  whose  members 
knew  the  equality  of  all  as  spiritual  men  and  saints 
(connections  of  God)  and  brothers  one  to  another. 
There  were  no  offices  with  peculiar  privileges,  only 
the  voluntary  services,  which  established  a  moral 
demand  for  grateful  recognition  and  subordination 
of  the  others.    In  the  post-apostolic  congregations* 

*  The  report  in  "  Acts  of  the  Apostles"  (14-23)  that  the  apostles 
had  appointed  "  presbyters"  for  the  newly-founded  congregations  is 
not  confirmed  by  the  genuine  Pauline  epistles  (to  which  the  ones  ad- 
dressed to  Timothy  and  Titus  do  not  belong),  for  Presbyters  are 
never  mentioned  in  them.  Hence  the  origin  of  this  class  is  dark. 
Perhaps  it  is  based  on  an  imitation  of  the  government  of  the  Jewish 
synagogue,  in  which  there  was  a  council  of  the  oldest ;  or  it  may  be 
that  its  prototype  is  to  be  found  in  the  senate  of  municipal  govern- 

281 


Christian  Origins 

we  find  "  Presbyters  "  or  "  Elders  "  as  a  class  of 
superior  members,  who,  as  survivors  of  the  first  gen- 
eration, were  the  natural  bearers  of  tradition  and  the 
representatives  of  the  congregation  in  all  communal 
affairs.  From  among  these  Elders,  and  even  with 
the  assent  of  the  entire  congregation,  the  "  over- 
seers "  or  Bishops  were  elected ;  at  first,  these  were 
nothing  more  than  a  committee  of  the  class  of  elders 
and  therefor  not  distinguished  from  them.  The 
Clergy  (the  select,  the  persons  of  rank)  con- 
sisted of  the  overseers  and  the  presbyters,  from 
whose  number  they  had  been  taken,  and  the  dea- 
cons who  performed  lower  forms  of  service,  such 
as  caring  for  the  poor;  but  their  duties  had  not  yet 
been  fixed  by  law,  nor  had  their  number  been  fixed. 
One  congregation  might  have  a  number  of  overseers. 
Mention  is  made  of  prophets  and  teachers  alongside 
of  the  bishops  and  shepherds  (both  designations 
applying  to  the  superior).  In  the  post-apostolic 
congregations  it  was  possible  for  any  one  whom  the 
spirit  moved  or  who  possessed  the  power  of  teaching, 
to  address  the  congregation. 

In  so  far,  during  the  first  century,  the  congrega- 
tion, with  its  freely-elected  officials,  rested  on  a  basis 
of  democratic  equality  and  freedom.  Such  a  condi- 
ments of  the  Roman  provinces.  In  any  event,  the  Presbyters  con- 
stituted an  order  of  notables,  highly  respected  for  the  sake  of  their 
ripe  experience  or  other  rare  qualities,  and  yet  not  necessarily  all  of 
them  invested  with  official  functions.  For  this  purpose,  peculiarly 
gifted  individuals  were  selected  from  among  them  ;  in  so  far  all 
Bishops  were  Presbyters,  but  not  vice  versa. 

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Establishment  of  Church  Authority 

tion  could  not  be  permanently  satisfactory,  because 
there  was  no  protection  against  disorders  and  dis- 
ruptions, occasioned  by  ambition  of  individuals  or 
desire  for  innovation.  Such  evils,  as  had  appeared 
in  the  Corinthian  congregation  at  the  turn  of  the 
first  and  second  centuries,  gave  the  Roman  Clemens 
the  occasion  for  a  letter  of  warning;  therein,  he  de- 
fended the  authority  of  the  office  expressly  against* 
the  innovators,  maintaining  that  it  was  a  life-tenure,  i 
and,  in  characteristic  manner,  he  cited  both  the 
Priesthood  of  the  Old  Testament  as  the  prototype 
and  the  analogy  to  military  discipline. 

When,  soon  after  the  beginning  of  the  second 
century,  the  gnostic  teachers  confused  the  minds  of 
the  congregation  by  their  errors,  the  need  of  firmer 
organization  became  apparent ;  and  this  could  be  ac- 
complished only  by  the  elevation  of  one  bishop  as 
monarchical  head  of  the  presbyter-aristocracy  and 
the  concentration  of  authority  on  doctrine  and 
morals  in  his  person. 

This  situation  is  revealed  to  us  by  the  letter  oi\ 
Bishop  Ignatius  of  Antioch,  urgently  warning  every 
congregation  to  subordinate  itself  to  its  Bishop.  The 
letter  to  the  congregation  at  Smyrna  is  an  example : 
"  Obey  the  Bishop  as  Jesus  Christ  the  Father,  and 
the  Presbyters  as  the  Apostles,  but  honor  the  Dea- 
cons as  the  law  of  the  Lord !  No  one  should  do  any- 
thing relating  to  the  Church  without  the  Bishop. 
Only  that  eucharist  (celebration  of  the  supper)  shall 
be  considered  the  right  one  which  the  Bishop  or  his 

283 


Christian  Origins 


\ 


appointee  administers.  Wherever  the  Bishop  ap- 
pears, let  the  many  (the  congregation)  be,  as  the 
church  is  there,  where  Jesus  Christ  is.  Baptism 
without  the  Bishop  is  not  allowed,  nor  may  the  love- 
feast  be  partaken  of;  only  what  he  sanctions  is 
pleasing  to  God,  so  whatever  happens  will  be  safe 
and  firm  (beyond  dispute).  Whoever  honors  the 
Bishop  is  honored  of  God ;  whoever  does  aught  be- 
hind the  Bishop's  back,  serves  the  devil." 
-^For  Ignatius,  the  Bishop  represents  the  unity  and 
order  of  the  single  congregation;  his  authority  is 
based  on  the  practical  necessity  of  a  strong  organiza- 
tion, in  order  to  avert  disintegration,  consequent 
upon  heresy  or  schism.  But  there  had  not  yet  been 
set  up  a  dogmatic  theory  of  the  principle  of  the 
bishop's  authority,  nor  had  he  the  priestly  character 
and  exclusive  hierarchical  rank  of  office ;  but  he  was 
to  preside  over  the  college  of  presbyters;  these,  his 
"  synhedrin  "  or  "  spiritual  wreath,"  are  compared 
to  the  Apostles,  just  as  the  Bishop  is  compared  with 
Christ  or  God  who  is  called  "  the  Bishop  of  all."  At ; 
this  stage,  the  Bishop  is  the  monarchical  head  of 
each  individual  congregation,  and  not  the  organ  of 
a  wider  church-organization  (which  Ignatius  had 
not  yet  in  mind).  When  the  necessity  therefore  be- 
came more  and  more  urgent  by  reason  of  the  grow- 
ing diffusion  of  the  gnostic  heresy,  the  idea  that  the 
Bishops  were  the  successors  of  the  Apostles  took 
shape,  and  that,  as  such,  they  were  the  bearers  of 
the  apostolic  tradition,  in  exclusive  possession  of  the 
"  certain  charisma  of  ecclesiastical  truth." 

284 


Establishment  of  Church  Authority 

The  possession  of  the  Christian  spirit  of  truth, 
which  Paul  had  still  attributed  to  all  Christians  as 
*'*  filled  with  the  spirit  '*  and  which  had  been 
acknowledged  pre-eminently  of  prophets  and  teach- 
ers until  then,  was  now  (since  Irenseus  and  Tertul-. 
lian,  at  the  close  of  the  second  century)  limited  to 
those  performing  the  Bishop's  offices ;  they  were  the 
successors  of  the  Apostles  and  possessors  of  all  the 
Apostolic  authority,  having  its  origin  in  Christ  and 
God.  Of  itself,  authority  of  exclusive  teaching 
brought  to  the  bishop  the  equipment  of  all  other 
apostolic  privileges,  particularly  that  of  "  binding 
and  loosening,"  the  exercise  of  the  church  powers 
of  punishing  or  forgiving  sins.  Thus,  from  the 
successors  of  the  Apostles,  the  Bishops  soon  became 
also  "  the  Judges  in  Christ's  stead,"  possessors  of 
the  ecclesiastical  power  of  the  key,  upon  whose 
judgment  depended  the  salvation  of  souls. 

The  hierarchical  superiority  of  the  clergy  (the 
bishops  and  the  presbyters)  over  the  lay-congrega- 
tions was  completed  by  investing  them  with  the  ante- 
Christian  priesthood;  that  which  had  been  meant 
as  a  mere  figure  of  speech,  e.  g.,  by  the  Roman 
Clemens  (after  Tertullian  and  Cyprian  particularly, 
middle  of  the  third  century),  crystallized  into  a 
serious  dogmatic  theory:  The  bishops  and  presby- 
ters are  priests  and  vicars  of  Christ,  in  so  far  as  they 
alone,  representing  the  congregation  before  God, 
were  empowered  to  bring  the  altar-sacrifice  of  the 
eucharist,  and  in  so  far  as  they,  representing  God 

285 


Christian  Origins 

before  the  congregation,  could  dispense  divine  mercy 
or  withhold  it. 

Thus,  at  the  price  of  evangelical  freedom  of  faith 
and  conscience  of  the  individual,  the  unity  and  order 
of  the  Church  as  a  hierarchically-governed  social 
organism  was  founded.  Under  the  stress  of 
circumstance,  in  order  to  maintain  itself  against 
enemies  within  and  without  in  the  struggle  for  exist- 
ence, Christianity  (since  the  third  century)  adopted 
the  form  of  hierarchical  churchhood  as  a  protecting 
cover,  beneath  which  its  true  principle  of  religious 
immediacy  and  ethical  freedom  was  naturally  hidden 
and  repressed,  but  not  killed;  it  was  preserved  as 
a  latent  seed-power,  until,  after  many  long  centuries, 
it  developed  into  powerful  life  again  in  Protestant- 
ism. 

Besides,  voices  of  opposition  to  the  authority  of 
church-offices  are  not  wanting  at  the  beginning. 
That  same  Tertullian,  who  regarded  the  Bishops  as 
the  successors  of  the  Apostles  and  bearers  of  the 
apostolic-Catholic  tradition  of  doctrine,  enunciated 
at  the  same  time  genuine  Protestant  principles  as  a 
defense  of  montanistic  prophecy ;  for  example,  "  The 
r'hurch  is  the  spirit,  not  the  number  of  bishops. 
We  Christians  have  been  called  as  priests,  by  Christ, 
the  high  priest.  Where  three  are  gathered,  even 
though  they  be  laymen,  there  is  the  church.  Neither 
length  of  time,  rank  of  person  nor  privilege  of 
locality  has  any  power  against  the  truth.  Our  Lord 
Jesus  called  himself  Truth  and  not  Habit.      Not 

286 


Establishment  of  Church  Authority 

only  novelty,  but  truth  also  disproves  heresies. 
Whatever  is  thought  contrary  to  Truth  is  heresy, 
be  it  never  so  old  a  habit.  How  could  it  be  possible 
that  the  devil  should  be  ever  at  work,  while  God's 
work  should  be  at  a  standstill  and  cease  to  progress  ? 
For  this,  the  Lord  sent  the  Paraclete  (Spirit)  that, 
because  human  weakness  could  not  grasp  all  at  once, 
discipline  should  be  ordered  gradually,  Scripture 
explained,  knowledge  corrected  and  progress  made 
toward  the  better.  As  everything  in  nature  grad- 
ually develops  to  its  maturity,  so  righteousness  was 
in  the  beginning  Nature  (religion)  ;  it  progressed 
through  the  Law  and  the  Prophets  to  childhood, 
through  the  Gospels  it  acquired  the  strength  of 
youth  and  through  the  Paraclete  comes  the  develop- 
ment to  maturity."  Clement  of  Alexandria,  the 
contemporary  of  Tertullian,  declared,  not  the 
Bishop,  but  the  genuine  ecclesiastical  Gnostic  who 
added  philosophic  knowledge  to  his  faith,  to  be  the 
true  successor  of  the  apostles,  the  true  presbyter 
and  servant  of  the  divine  will. 

Thus  we  see  that  at  the  threshold  of  the  incipient 
church-authority  the  protesting  voices  are  raised  in 
favor  of  the  real  free  and  progressive  prophetic 
spirit  and  scientific  thinking, — naturally,  powerless 
at  first  against  the  dominant  tendency  of  the  times 
which  needed  authority,  yet  worthy  of  consideration 
as  witnesses  to  Christian  individualism,  which  never 
had  suffered  extinction  and  prophecies  of  the  future 
strengthening  of  the  Protestant  spirit  of  immediate 

287 


Christian  Origins 

religious  feeling  and  of  autonomous  religious  think- 
ing. 

From  the  close  of  the  second  century,  the 
"  Articles  of  Faith  "  were  regarded  as  the  content 
of  the  apostolic-catholic  teaching,  which  the  Bishop  > 
handed  down  as  the  successors  of  the  Apostles. 
Probably,  it  took  shape  in  the  Roman  congregation, 
about  the  middle  of  the  second  century,  for  the  bap- 
tismal confession  to  Father,  Son  and  Ghost  (Mat- 
thew 28,  19)  was  enlarged  by  the  addition  of 
formulas  explanatory  of  and  opposed  to  gnostic 
errors.  This  Roman  baptismal  confession,  origi- 
nating in  the  church-need  for  a  protective  against 
heretics,  is  similar  in  the  main  to  the  "  apostolic 
symbolum."  Naturally,  neither  its  trinitarian  root- 
form  nor  the  formula  of  the  second  article  ("  only 
son,  received  of  the  Holy  Ghost,  and  borne  of  the 
Virgin  Mary,  descended  into  Hades  and  ascended 
into  Heaven")  originated  with  the  Apostles,  nor 
had  an  apostolic  origin,  for  it  can  be  proven  that  the 
myths  mentioned  crystallized  in  the  Congregation 
of  the  post-apostolic  period.  That  this  Roman 
baptismal  formula,  which  originated  in  the  middle  of 
the  second  century  as  a  church  weapon  against  the 
heretics,  should  have  been  given  out  as  "  apostolic  " 
is  in  consonance  with  the  prevailing  second-century 
notion  that  everything  which  is  believed  to  be  the 
truth  by  the  universal  Church  is  based  on  apostolic 
tradition.     This  in  turn  was  supported  by  the  pre- 

288 


Establishment  of  Church  Authority 

supposition  of  the  apostolic  succession  of  the 
Bishops.  These  two  fictions  of  the  apostolic  origin 
of  the  Bishop's  office  and  of  the  apostolic  tradition 
of  the  articles  of  faith  are  to  be  judged  as  the 
mutually  supporting  dogmatic  presuppositions  of  the 
church-consciousness  of  the  second  century,  which 
demanded  authority. 

Besides,  it  is  remarkable  that  though  Tertullian 
designated  the  articles  of  faith  as  the  law  set  up 
by  Christ  and  the  criterion  for  every  doctrine, 
nevertheless,  three  passages,  wherein  he  speaks  of 
them,  give  three  decidedly  different  versions ;  two  of 
them  contain  theological  elaborations  from  his 
dogmatics,  going  far  beyond  the  formula  of  the 
Roman  baptismal  symbol ;  thus,  the  latter  could  not 
have  been  fixed  by  the  church  authority  at  the  time 
in  a  specified  set  of  words.  Clement,  the  Alex- 
andrian, does  not  know  the  articles  of  faith  at  all, 
but  seeks  to  confuse  the  heretics  by  this  theological 
gnosis,  attached  in  loose  fashion  to  the  general  con- 
gregational tradition.  Not  until  the  third  century 
did  the  articles  of  faith  become  a  generally  recog- 
nized confession.  Therewith  the  Catholic  Church 
had  erected  a  protecting  wall,  which  divided  it 
sharply  from  heretical  parties.  At  the  same  time, 
however,  the  Christian  faith  was  weighted  thereby 
with  the  fatal  demand  of  belief  in  mythical  tradi- 
tions,— with  the  demand  to  sacrifice  the  intellect. 
From  that  time,  all  theological  efforts  to  reconcile 
faith   and  knowledge   were  wrecked   by   this   im- 

289 


Christian  Origins 

movable  presupposition.  Greek  philosophy  is  not 
so  much  to  blame  for  the  inadequacy  of  dogmas 
which  arose  out  of  the  theology  of  the  Greek 
fathers;  but  rather,  the  mythology  fixed  by  the 
articles  of  faith  in  the  belief  of  the  early-Christian 
congregation  nullified  all  theological  effort.  To 
reconcile  them  with  reason  was  not  possible  and 
never  will  be. 

By  their  procedure,  the  Gnostics  gave  the  impetus 
to  the  origin  of  the  New  Testament  Canon.  Mar- 
cion,  the  Gnostic,  who  taught  in  Rome  from  140, 
gathered  together  a  new  Christian  Canon  to  take 
the  place  of  the  Old  Testament  which  he  had  re- 
jected; for  his  community  of  followers,  spread  all 
over  the  empire,  he  took  the  Gospel  according  to 
Luke  and  nine  of  the  letters  of  Paul.  At  that  time, 
the  Church  had  nothing  of  a  similar  nature  to  set 
up  in  opposition, — no  collection  of  Christian  writ- 
ings on  a  plane  with  the  Old  Testament,  serviceable 
as  an  inspired  and  infallible  authority.  In  Justin's 
time  the  "  Memorabilia  of  the  Apostles,"  i.  e.,  the 
three  first  Gospels,  pre-eminent  by  virtue  of  the 
master's  words,  were  read  in  congregation  meetings 
with  the  Old  Testament.  In  many  congregations, 
the  letters  of  Paul  were  also  highly  esteemed,  and 
so  were  other  edificatory  writings,  particularly  those 
with  apocalyptic  contents.  But  none  of  these  writ- 
ings had  attained  canonical  recognition  by  the  middle 
of  the  second  century.  Even  by  the  year  160,  the 
number  of  our  Gospels  had  not  been  finally  fixed  at 

290 


Establishment  of  Church  Authority 

four;  the  Alogi  of  Asia  Minor  rejected  the  Gospel 
of  John  and  many  congregations  of  the  Orient  pre- 
ferred to  use  the  Hebrew  or  Egyptian  Gospel ;  out- 
side of  gnostic  circles,  no  one  spoke  of  apostolic 
letters  as  sacred  authoritative  writings. 

Then  it  was  that  Marcion  compelled  the  Church 
to  oppose  his  one-sided  Pauline  Canon  by  a  Canon 
more  comprehensive,  giving  expression  to  the  com- 
mon property  of  the  Church  :  the  three  Gospels  were 
joined  with  Luke's  Gospel,  while  the  specifically 
church-gospel  of  Matthew  was  put  at  the  beginning 
as  being  the  highest  authority.  Naturally,  it  was 
not  possible  to  omit  the  epistles  of  Paul,  but  proper 
care  was  taken  that  their  suspicious  opposition  to 
the  Law  was  rendered  harmless  by  adding  the 
Epistles  of  Timothy  and  Titus  with  their  church- 
weakened  Paulinism:  then,  too,  the  Acts  of  the 
Apostles,  wherein  Paul  appears  in  peaceful  harmony 
with  Peter  and  all  of  the  Apostles,  was  put  at  the 
beginning,  and  finally,  the  group  of  "  Catholic " 
Epistles  was  added,  giving  the  other  Apostolic 
authorities,  John,  Peter,  Judas,  and  Jacobus,  a  chance 
to  be  heard.  From  i8o,  this  church  canon  appears 
as  a  closed  collection  (in  the  list  of  the  so-called 
Muratorian  Fragments  and  in  the  books  of  Irenaeus 
and  Tertullian).  It  is  not  known  who  collected 
them ;  with  great  probability  it  may  be  assumed  that 
their  recognition  as  authority  emanated  from  the 
Roman  congregation. 

As  the    "  New  Testament,"    this  collection  was 

291 


Christian  Origins 

placed  alongside  the  Old;  it  was  declared  to  be 
equally  inspired  as  the  latter  which  long  had  been 
considered  by  the  Church  as  the  inspired  Word  of 
God.  For  a  long  time,  the  Church  was  undecided 
as  to  the  place  of  certain  writings  in  the  Canon; 
as  late  as  the  fourth  century,  seven  pieces  (Epistles 
to  the  Hebrews,  Apocalypse  of  John,  and  five  Catho- 
lic Epistles)  were  not  acknowledged  as  canonical 
by  some  of  the  congregations,  while  in  other  places, 
the  congregation  conceded  equal  value  and  inspira- 
tion to  the  Shepherd  of  Hermes,  the  Apocalypse  of 
Peter,  the  first  Epistle  of  Clemens,  the  Epistle  of 
Barnabas  and  the  Pauline  records.  The  criterion 
for  acceptance  in  the  Canon  was  partly  the  tradition 
of  the  apostolic  origin  of  the  writing,  partly  agree- 
ment with  the  general  church-consciousness  as  set 
down  in  the  articles  of  faith.  This  last  character- 
istic was  actually  the  deciding  test,  for  writings 
circulated  as  apostolic  yet  contradicting  the  arti- 
cles of  faith,  were  rejected  as  spurious;  such  were 
some  apocrypha  of  Peter  and  the  apocryphal  rec- 
ords of  the  Apostles.  On  the  other  hand,  the  equation. 
Catholic  =  apostolic  =  divinely-inspired,  was  so 
firmly  maintained  that  an  apostolic  origin,  direct  or 
indirect  at  least  (as  in  the  case  of  the  Gospels  of 
Mark  and  Luke),  was  believed  to  be  a  necessary  pre- 
supposition for  all  those  writings  accepted  in  the 
Canon  for  the  sake  of  their  recognized  value  to  the 
Church. 

This  dogmatic  presupposition  of  the  Church  ex- 

292 


Establishment  of  Church  Authority 

plains  why  the  Church-tradition  traces  back  to  apos- 
tolic authors  even  those  New  Testament  writings 
which  without  doubt  originated  in  post-apostolic 
times;  such  are  the  Gospels  of  Matthew  and  John, 
the  Epistles  to  the  Hebrews  and  to  the  Ephesians, 
the  Pastoral  Epistles,  all  of  the  Catholic  Epistles 
and  the  Apocalypses.  For  historical  judgment, 
there  can  be  no  essential  difference  therein  that  some 
of  these  post-apostoUc  writings  claim  to  be  apostolic 
by  their  content,  while  others  have  been  ascribed  to 
an  Apostle  without  such  inner  reason;  in  the  first 
case  pseudonymity  is  explained  by  the  same  motive 
which  held  for  the  Church  tradition  in  the  latter, 
namely,  the  desire  to  put  under  the  segis  of  strong 
apostolic  authority  everything  that  is  recognized  as 
true  by  the  Church.  It  was  the  same  need  for  a 
solid  historical  support  for  Church  authority  which 
led  to  the  claim  of  the  Apostolic  creation  of  the 
Bishop's  office,  the  Apostolic  handing-down  of  the 
articles  of  faith  (the  "Apostolic  symbolum")  and 
the  apostolic  authorship  of  the  New  Testament  writ- 
ings. Inasmuch  as  Protestant  theology  has  recog- 
nized the  lack  of  historical  basis  for  the  first  two 
claims,  there  is  no  actual  reason*  why  historical 
criticism  should  halt  or  hesitate  at  the  third  claim, 
which  has  exactly  the  same  basis  and  value  as  the 
other  two. 

*  That  is,  no  logical  reason — the  other  reasons  for  bowing  to  this 
tradition  are  easy  to  understand  from  a  psychological  point  of  view, 
but  have  no  bearing  whatever  on  science  (see  page  23). 

293 


Christian  Origins 

By  setting"  up  a  collection  of  early-Christian 
writings  with  normative  dignity,  the  Church  erected 
a  barrier  against  the  unbounded  license  of  fantastic 
notions  and  enthusiastic  conceits;  it  preserved  the 
possibility  of  a  continuous  historical  development  in 
direct  relation  with  its  origin.  But  by  elevating 
these  writings  to  the  plane  of  supernatural,  inspired 
oracles,  so  as  to  give  them  unconditional  authority, 
superior  to  all  the  disputes  of  the  present,  the  Church 
has  made  a  natural  historical  understanding  of  them 
impossible ;  it  has  wiped  out  the  conditions  imposed 
by  the  history  of  their  period  and  the  peculiar  va- 
riety of  each,  and  drawing  the  veil  of  myth  over  the 
actual  origins  of  the  Christian  religion,  it  has  bowed 
all  sensible  thinking  beneath  the  yoke  of  a  sanctified 
letter. 

It  is  due  to  the  irrepressible  and  constant  efficiency 
of  such  genial  teachers  as  Origen,  Augustin  and  the 
like,  who  were  nurtured  by  the  wisdom  of  Greek 
antiquity,  who  enriched  and  fertilized  Church-tradi- 
tion with  new  thoughts  and  knew  how  to  harmonize 
them  with  the  sacred  letter  of  the  Biblical  writings 
by  the  use  of  allegory — to  these  men,  whom  no 
barriers  or  authorities  could  suppress,  it  is  due  that 
the  Church  religion  did  not  become  rigid  book-reli- 
gion after  the  manner  of  Islam.  When  the  Church 
authority  had  fulfilled  its  pedagogic  mission  for  the 
peoples  of  the  Middle  Ages,  and  had  become  an 
unbearable  yoke  for  the  awakening  spirit  of  German 
Christianity,  the  New  Testament  became  the  arsenal 

294 


Establishment  of*  Church  Authority 

from  which  the  Church  of  the  Reformation  took  the 
weapons  against  the  Priest-church  of  Rome.  In  its 
turn,  the  inspired  Bible-letter  soon  became  her  new 
fetters.  To  tear  loose  from  them  and  struggle 
through  to  the  real  freedom  of  a  conscience  bound  to 
God  only,  that  has  been  the  problem  of  modern 
Protestantism  since  Lessing,  and  the  solution  of  that 
problem  engages  our  attention  to-day. 


295 


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